


What They Did to Him

by LuminiaAravis



Series: No Place Like Home [1]
Category: The Wicked Years Series - Gregory Maguire
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Body Image, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Depression, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Injury Recovery, Kidnapping, M/M, Major Character Injury, Major Original Character(s), Male Slash, Masturbation, Non-Explicit Sex, Non-Graphic Violence, Old Age, Older Characters, Permanent Injury, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Post-Canon, Psychological Trauma, Redemption, Self-Doubt, Self-Worth Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:35:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 21,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27195899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuminiaAravis/pseuds/LuminiaAravis
Summary: For the first time in his life, Trism felt old.He had been on both sides of the same conflict, and had somehow managed to choose the wrong side both times. He’d loved and lost, and loved again and lost again. He’d been broken and repaired one time too many, he thought. Maybe this is what getting old means. You realize you missed your chance and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Relationships: Trism bon Cavalish/Liir (Wicked)
Series: No Place Like Home [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2008036
Comments: 51
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anarchived](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarchived/gifts).



> I feel like there's SO MUCH I COULD say about this story, but I'm gonna try and keep my notes short and sweet.
> 
> Firstly, I know a lot of Maguire fics based on the books tend to be imitative or stylistically consistent of his work. He has a very distinct style and voice, and in this story I'm using that as an inspiration, but I have my OWN voice and style that I want to stay true to. 
> 
> Secondly, this is absolutely going to be one of those "Liir and Trism should have been together at the end!" stories. It was originally gonna be quite short, but it kind of grew into its own narrative. I want to take the time and tell the story because it's important to me to let characters grow and change, to go through difficult events and come out the other side, maybe learn something, maybe get some closure. 
> 
> Maguire is a MASTER at not giving his characters closure, which is just completely devastating and fantastic to me because in real life, closure doesn't just happen - but stories don't often dare to be that real. So I understand that, and frankly, that's one of the reasons he's my favorite author, because there's something about the way Maguire just holds up a mirror and says "Look, this is as real as it gets" enchants me and breaks my heart all at once - but at the same time, I have something of my own to say on the matter.
> 
> Thirdly, I'd like to thank the fabulous and supportive Anarchived, to whom I've gifted this story. I've had the unique privilege of having known her since middle school, and I'm truly, TRULY thankful for all the writing we have done and will continue to do together! She inspires me to stay positive, persevere, and not to take myself so goddamn seriously! This whole thing would have floundered and gone belly-up without her. She is my sounding board, my abat-voix. Everything I write rings truer and sweeter when it's echoed back through her. 
> 
> And with that: Whatever This Is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weird little aside: A song that I listened to A LOT while writing/brainstorming for this is "Come Back to Us" from the movie "1917," composed by Thomas Newman. Listen to it while you read, maybe? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNu38sUDaFo

For the first time in his life, Trism felt old.

He had been on both sides of the same conflict, and had somehow managed to choose the wrong side both times. He’d loved and lost, and loved again and lost again. He’d been broken and repaired one time too many, he thought. Maybe this is what getting old means. You realize you missed your chance and there’s nothing you can do about it.

He knew the war with loyal Oz was over, that La Mombey was gone, and that Ozma had returned. He just didn’t know how long it had been, exactly, in terms of days and weeks.

Trism watched summer turn to autumn through the high window in his basement cell — would Liir be warm enough out there? Would someone think to let him rest by the fireside and cover him up at night? Autumn turned to winter — Liir _had_ to be alright. If the war was over, that meant he wasn’t a prisoner anymore. 

As the snow settled in, so did a panoply of aches and pains. Trism’s knees stopped wanting to bend. The muscles in his neck, back, and shoulders were always ferociously sore. The joints in his fingers started to stiffen up, just a little.

His head hurt and his heart hurt. He was experiencing a slow, steady wearing away of his old self into something lesser. Sadder.

Maybe this is what getting old means, he thought, running his hands through the remains of what had once been a glorious golden head of hair and a sharp, stylish beard. You realize you’re falling apart and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Trism imagined the corpse of a great Elephant frozen solid, half-buried in the snow on the side of the Yellow Brick Road. He imagined himself approaching it, just as he was now, haggard and heartsick, lying down next to it, and drifting into a dreamless sleep. He imagined he could go peacefully that way. 

But Liir was alright. He _had_ to be.

Mombey wouldn’t have put Liir in harm’s way on purpose, would she? Her plan had involved needing him alive. 

He hadn’t heard the news directly, of course. A messenger Bird had come from the Emerald City within days of the — how to describe it? Was it a peace talk gone sideways? A failed coup? A _successful_ coup? An accident? A miracle?

At any rate, the Bird had told the Munchkinlander officers, the officers had told the men, and the men had relayed it to the prisoners in bits and pieces as they gossipped. The EC had been besieged by dragons for three days straight, suffering monumental damage from the aerial attacks. On the third day, Emperor Shell had surrendered. La Mombey had called the dragons off and met the Emperor in the city to discuss the terms of a treaty of some kind — all fairly standard stuff — but then things got fuzzy. Either Trism wasn’t getting the full story with his ear pressed to the cell door, or the Munchkinlanders had no idea what had really happened.

Something involving a spellbook (obviously the Grimmerie), a woman who had showed up on a broomstick to play domingon for the occasion (Candle? Could Candle ride the broom all along?), a few hundred Birds, a girl with green skin (Liir and Candle’s daughter, probably), the Cowardly Lion himself, and a dead Elephant.

Trism chose not to believe that Liir had died. 

He was in the care and company of someone who loved him. He _had_ to be. And from what Trism had deduced, Candle and his daughter were with him, taking care of him, keeping him warm and dry and fed. Tending to his wounds if he had any. Doing the best they could manage for their beloved husband and father. Candle had loved him back to life once, she could do it again.

Trism asked the cadet who brought his meals about Liir, but the boy said he hadn’t heard anything. “That prisoner what was here a few weeks ago? The one who was an Elephant but not really?”

“Yes, that’s the one, lad. Liir is his name. Has anyone mentioned a fellow named Liir?”

The cadet shook his head and left without another word.

But Liir _couldn’t_ be dead. Mombey had just put him in an enchanted sleep to make everyone _think_ he was —

Most of the other prisoners who’d been held in the makeshift jail were EC soldiers, and were therefore released when the news came in. They were told they could leave the camp at any time and go anywhere they wanted, but they might wait, since the EC was sending a small lightly-armed company East along the Yellow Brick Road to conduct an exchange.

A few dozen freed prisoners left as soon as their cells were opened, eager to get back to wherever they’d come from, to resume whatever it is they had been doing — eager to see their families again, eager to get out of Munchkinland, or just eager to get the hell out of the army. 

Most of those who stayed to wait for the escort had been wounded in battle and would never recover. They had lost limbs, broken their backs or necks or hips, taken bullets in just the wrong places. They had been ravaged by the standard wartime diseases — gangrene, cholera, pneumonia, and the rest — and had been left permanently weak. In short, most of the soldiers who stayed couldn’t walk very far or very long, if they could walk at all. They’d need the help if they were to have any chance of surviving the journey home.

Trism was not released from jail. It didn’t matter who was running things, he was wanted for treason by both sides. That and more, if what the Bird had said was true. That and _much_ more.

The treason he was proud of. The rest made him vomit.

How badly had the Emerald City been damaged, really? Maybe Mombey had stuck with the strategy he had developed for her early on, training the dragons to attack only the large government buildings near the palace and avoid the residential areas. Maybe that had been enough to get Shell Go-to-Hell Thropp to surrender, if he’d had the ceiling cave in on him in his own home.

The knot in Trism’s stomach informed him otherwise. But nobody would tell him one way or the other, so he was forced to sit on it.

Liir was alright, he thought. Even _if_ the EC had been all but reduced to rubble, he would make do. He was scrappy and stubborn, he’d survive. 

Not if he’s dead and rotting in a cornfield somewhere.

Liir was alright, he _had_ to be.

If he wasn’t, how was Trism still here?


	2. Chapter 2

Not too long after the first snows of winter had fallen, the prisoner exchange delegation arrived from the EC. Trism could see part of the training yard from the window in his basement cell, so he stood on his toes to watch.

The party from the Emerald City comprised a hundred or so prisoners and maybe two dozen soldiers — all of whom looked remarkably young from Trism’s point of view. The officer in charge — a minor menacier, if Trism was reading his rank insignia correctly — was a stocky, copper-haired youth maybe seventeen or eighteen years old. What he lacked in height and age he made up for in swagger, and despite not being particularly handsome or imposing, he carried himself like a king, striding across the yard as if he owned the place.

The process was fairly informal. The menacier handed the Munchkinlander captain a roll of paper. The captain called the names of the Munchkinlander soldiers returning home and checked them off one by one as they shouted “Present!” Apparently satisfied that all his compatriots were accounted for, he directed them to the old Eminence’s manor house, and they filed inside, out of the cold, and out of Trism’s view.

Then the captain handed the young menacier a similar list. He looked it over briefly and gestured to something Trism couldn’t see. He shook his head and addressed the captain, who in turn sent two cadets to the stables. The EC delegation was going to need more horses and carts, Trism guessed. They hadn’t counted on this many injured.

Trism was just about to turn away from the window when the menacier spotted him through the tiny portal. He got the captain’s attention and pointed to Trism. The captain shrugged, and the two came up to the window to get a better look.

Not that there was much to see. Trism very much doubted that he was recognizable like this. His hair was long and matted, his clothes were stained a pungent gray-brown with months of dirt and sweat. He had never been so thin. 

The menacier knelt down next to the window. “That really him?” he said, his voice muted through the glass.

“Been here since summer,” the Munchkinlander said. “We’re not sure what to do with him.”

The young officer considered what was left of Trism bon Cavalish, Prime Menacier of the Emperor’s Home Guard. Maybe this is what getting old means. Seeing yourself reflected in the people around you, realizing how much you’ve changed, and that there’s nothing you can do to change back.

“We’ll take him.”


	3. Chapter 3

Luckily, Munchkinland winters were relatively mild. The countryside wasn’t covered in snow so much as it was merely veiled in the idea of it — a little dusting of immaculate white powder over the dormant land, a brisk wind once in a while, and a few small patches of ice here and there to complete the ensemble.

The Munchkinlanders liked this kind of winter, Trism learned. A layer of mineral-rich meltwater was just what their fields would want come spring. Especially this year, after seasons of pillaging and bushfires had left the great Corn Basket empty.

Trism had known what to expect to see along the Yellow Brick Road heading West. He’d known full well that the fields had been denuded of their bounty. He had come this way last summer. It was just that it was all so quiet now. And the trees were bare, too, so you really could see for miles, the vast expanse of it all. Trism had known there was nothing there. But it hadn’t occurred to him just how much nothing there was.

He had also expected to see the bodies lying in the ditch along the side of the road. Some were Munchkinlanders, some looked like civilians. Some were EC soldiers. He looked at their faces, every single one of them. He was looking for one person in particular, someone who had once cared for him. He was reminded of another time he had looked at dead faces.

The caravan traveled at a crawl. There really was no way around it, when there were too many casualties and not enough carts for them to ride in. Those among the party who were still generally motile had to take turns hiking. None of the EC officers rode the horses they’d brought, though. That much was a credit to them.

Trism had not served the Emerald City in nearly 15 years. But he had been right about the young man in charge — he _was_ only a minor menacier. Trism thought it unusual for such a junior officer to lead a mission without supervision, even if it was a small company and they weren’t expecting trouble. Not to mention the lad looked too young to shave yet — Trism had been about that old when he’d enlisted, right out of boarding school. But he’d only been in the marching band, for the Unnamed God’s sake!

Times had changed. And time was beating him at every turn, it seemed.

Trism had been shackled by his wrists to the back of a wagon and made to walk the whole way — which wouldn’t have been a problem five years ago. But he was waking up every morning now feeling worse than he had the night before. The cold air attacked his joints and settled there. His back felt like it was bound to break at any minute, and sleeping on the frozen ground only exacerbated the problem. He would lose sensation in his fingers and toes for hours at a time and it would only ever return with a vengeance.

The trip was difficult. Apparently, Trism still had a reputation after fifteen years away from the EC. One of the officers even said his older brother had been part of the unit under Cherrystone’s command that had captured and tortured Trism in the Disappointments all those lifetimes ago. 

The men all knew who he was. Soldier of fortune, militant atheist, traitor, anarchist, dragon-whisperer, witch-fucker. 

Dear Unnamed God, Trism only _wished_ he could belong to Liir again. He imagined him on Elphaba’s broom and wearing her cape, flying in out of nowhere with an army of Birds behind him, eclipsing the winter sun, scaring the soldiers away and landing beside him, throwing the great black cloak over the both of them and holding him tight, whispering sweet breathy promises to him in the dark and kissing his face.

The officers were just rowdy teenagers looking for an outlet, much as Trism had been once. He was the enemy and they had him captured. They had lost family and friends in the siege. Their childhood homes and playmates. Their parents, their siblings, their lovers. It was Trism’s fault and they knew it.

They picked up dead branches on the side of the road in the Pine Barrens and played a game to see how many times they had to beat Trism across the back before the branches broke. They spit and pissed and ejaculated in his food. They woke him up dozens of times a night so he couldn’t get any sleep. They refused to stop the wagon when he had to relieve himself, so he had to go while they walked.

Trism collapsed mid-march. Nobody stopped to pick him up. Nobody so much as tried to slap him awake. They just let him drag. When he came to, his hands were completely numb, he had dislocated his left shoulder, and his back, buttocks, and legs had been scraped raw against the yellow brick pavement. He couldn’t move his fingers for a day and a half after that, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t set his shoulder straight again.

They grabbed at his hair and beard and pulled them out in bloody chunks. They cut at his scalp with a blunt knife until he was almost completely shorn. 

He had been handsome once, hadn’t he? _Had he?_

Why did Trism have to crane his neck and squint every time they passed a corpse on the road, looking to see who it was? Why were their faces so important? Who did he expect to see?

None of the soldiers told him their names. “Just let us know if you get lonely,” they said. “I have a broom you can ride _right here_.”

None of it would bring their families back. Nothing could. Not them, not the tens of thousands of innocent people who’d been killed during this war, or the last one, or the one before that, or the one before that —

Why was Trism looking for an Elephant all the way out here?

It was alright. He deserved this. He was guilty and this was his comeuppance. Everything was in order. Fair’s fair.

The Munchkinlanders had done so much worse to his poor dear love, and he hadn’t even done anything wrong. He’d been calm the whole time, polite, graceful even, in his own way.

Trism deserved this. He was guilty and he deserved this.

He was almost certain that someone had loved him once. But the details had gotten whipped up and carried away on the winter wind.

Maybe this is what getting old means. Everything you used to rely on fades, and you have to learn to live with whatever scraps you were allowed to keep. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

The company reached the Emerald City right before spring.


	4. Chapter 4

The damage done during the siege wasn’t immediately obvious from outside the walls of the Emerald City. They were still very much intact, since the dragons hadn’t had to breach them to get to their targets. They’d just flown right over.

As the company of officers and rescued prisoners approached Munchkin Mousehole, they hoisted Trism onto one of the carts and put a burlap sack over his head. They said it was for his own protection, but Trism highly doubted anyone would recognize him in his current state. It was nice to ride in the cart, though.

Despite being blind except for the flecks of light darting through the burlap, Trism could tell that the city had changed. The roadways were rougher under the wagon wheels than he had remembered. There was no hustle and bustle, no singing or haggling, no horse traffic, and if there were pedestrians out, they were dead quiet. There was no wafted aroma of fresh bread or coffee. 

He could sense the empty space all around. The city was lesser, now. Sadder.

The cart stopped. The wounded, sick, and disabled members of the party were unloaded — sounded like a church or a convent or something. Or maybe a field hospital staffed with monts. Lots of talk of the Unnamed God and calling back and forth for Sister This-and-That.

Trism was not guided down off the cart. Not that he’d expected to be — it wouldn’t do for him to lounge around licking his wounds when people were still suffering on account of him.

The cart rambled on, empty now except for Trism and some camping gear, and stopped again after about twenty minutes. This time, Trism was tugged down onto the street. Someone unlocked the shackles around his wrists and replaced them with rope. He was led away from the cart, into a building or something with a heavy door on the outside. It closed behind him with an ominous thud and a dull clank — a deadbolt, and a big one by the sounds of it.

He was grabbed by the shoulders and marched down what he presumed was a long hallway. He _really_ couldn’t see where he was going now since the lights were so low. He tripped and stumbled down five or six steps when they got to the stairway. 

The person guiding him grumbled and casually threw him over his shoulder before continuing. Trism hadn’t expected that he’d be _that_ easy to carry. Granted, the someone carrying him had broad, strong shoulders — but still. Had he gotten _that_ thin?

There was only one place in the EC that would have passageways this far below street level. Trism knew he was in Southstairs. 

He had toured the place once decades ago, so he was vaguely aware of how it was laid out. A series of underground canals connected miles and miles of cell blocks and buildings carved right into the rock. The original structures had been built at the bottom of an enormous crater that opened up to the surface, and over time, additions had been slapped on here and there in adjacent tunnels and caves off the main crater. 

Some said that Southstairs was bigger than the EC itself. Trism had never known anyone to confirm or deny this fact, mainly since no one person knew just how big the prison was or how long it had been there. Not even the warden. Surely, someone somewhere at some point had made a record — but once a prisoner was in for life, it didn’t matter one way or the other. 

Trism had even heard stories about cells so remote, they hadn’t been used in centuries. That prisoners had died in them and nobody had bothered to remove the bodies, so they were just abandoned. Or that there were inmates locked up so deep within the caves, that the guards had forgotten the way to their cells and simply hadn’t been down to check on them in years.

Trism was tossed unceremoniously into a canal boat. Not even a sack of potatoes, he thought. A bag of bones. The jailer (or whoever it was) hopped in after him, and in a few moments Trism felt the boat move on the water, thick and still, stinking of any and all things rotting.

What if the jailer tossed him overboard? He might drown. His hands were tied, and even though he knew he could keep his head above water without using his arms, he wasn’t confident he could find his way out of the canal before he either choked on sewage or became too exhausted to swim. Nobody would ever find his body. Not in all _this_ . If someone _did_ come looking, they’d take one whiff of the putrescent canal and give up.

But what was this? Where did all these hypothetical situations come from, where he imagined someone cared enough about him to rescue him? Why did he suddenly care if he lived or died? Hadn’t he suffered enough?

No. No, he hadn’t. Drowning here, today — that would be too easy. 

After what could have been five minutes or could have been five hours, the skiff came to a stop. The jailer hoisted himself out of the boat, tied it off, and then lifted Trism bodily by the front of his tunic out of the canal and set him on his feet. A jingle of keys, a creaky door opening, a shove between the shoulderblades. 

Trism stumbled forward into what he assumed was his cell. The jailer untied his wrists, pulled the sack off his head from behind, and was out the cell door before Trism had time to orient himself and look around. When his eyes had adjusted, he was alone.


	5. Chapter 5

Time passed in indefinite amounts and at an irregular pace. Trism slept a lot. Or at least it felt like he did. He tried counting the days by tally mark on the cell wall, but stopped when he realized he had no point of reference. How could he know if it was day or night? How did he know if he’d been in here for weeks or months or centuries? 

His rations were slipped through a small flap in the cell door. Every meal was a variant of something that might have once been food but had long since given up the charade. At least there wasn’t some arrogant fifteen-year-old Major General pissing in it. Or if there was, Trism didn’t want to know. It was just barely enough sustenance to keep him from getting any weaker than he already was and he forced himself to take every last bite.

Again — _why?_ Why did he feel the need to go on living? Why was he still here? Was there some sort of karmic debt he was obligated to pay through suffering? Was this some form of self-flagellation, was he using the pain in his body to dull the pain in his heart? Or was he just too chicken to make up his mind and die already?

Trism discovered carvings in the walls of his cell. They were difficult to see without a light to cast them into relief, but he squinted and ran his hands along the stone and puzzled them out just for something to do.

NOR, said one. BRUTHER IRJI (DED) said another. BRUTHER MANEK (DED). MAMA SAREEMA. PAPA FIYERO (DED). AUNTEE WICH. LEER.

NOR, NOR, NOR, NOR, NOR, over and over again. NOR. IRJI. MANEK. SAREEMA. FIYERO. LEER. NOR, NOR, NOR, NOR. IRJI. LEER. MANEK. NOR. FIYERO. ELLFABA, ELLFABA, ELLFABA. SAREEMA. LEER. NOR.

ELLFABA LIVS. 

NOR LIVS. 

I LIV, I LIV, I LIV.

Trism wished he hadn’t found the carvings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, YES, I know the whole "Elphaba Lives!" thing didn't start until after she "died," and Nor had escaped from Southstairs by then...so yes it IS a little anachronistic, but I thought the point was more important than the timeline on this one. So, kiss my butt.


	6. Chapter 6

He kept having wild dreams about flying things. Big, black bat-winged creatures with teeth and claws keener than any sword. Birds, by the hundreds, by the thousands, by the millions, circling overhead in a silent, sublime dance, and great fire on the horizon that stained the sky ruby red.

And there was something else, something that made him weep and ache in ways he hadn’t thought he still could. Something dark and powerful, something that swept across the sky like a typhoon, untenable, yet so close he could still taste it on the tip of his tongue.

It planted a kiss in his heart, like a seed, and disappeared.

Wasn’t he supposed to be looking for someone? No, no, that couldn’t be right. He was starting to confuse his dreams for reality. 

Besides, there wasn’t anybody else there.


	7. Chapter 7

There was a knock at the door. He jerked awake, startled by the sudden breach in the silence. 

“Bon Cavalish?” What the hell was _that_ supposed to mean? He slowly, shakily got to his feet, using the wall for support, and shuffled over to the entrance to his cell. 

The same person spoke again. “You sure this is the right cell?”

“Positive,” said a second person. “This is my cell block, I knows it like I knows me own donger.”

“Which is to say not at all, unless you’ve got your own two hands on it,” said a third.

“Enough with the back-chat,” said the first. “Open the cell and bind the prisoner’s hands.”

He heard a rusty, reluctant clicking somewhere near the doorknob, and his cell opened for the first time in — Damn, he had forgotten it could do that.

Two men, probably some manner of prison guards, stepped in and tied his hands in front of him. The man standing outside was an EC soldier, all decked out in his dress uniform. “I suppose you’ll have to help him along,” he said curtly. “Come on, now.”

The guards did just that, supporting Trism’s weight under the arms and half-dragging, half-carrying him along the dingy corridor until they reached the canal. He was tossed into the boat, _Again_ , he thought, and the two guards hopped in after. They rowed around for some unspecified amount of time until they reached a landing.

He was hefted back out of the boat and lugged up a dark, narrow staircase, one of many that connected Southstairs to strategic points of entry and exit around the Emerald City. Which one they were using, specifically, he couldn’t figure.

The light at the top of the stairs blinded him and he crammed his eyes shut. He could hear the soldier’s footsteps in front of him, clicking along on some kind of smooth stone, maybe marble, and echoing crisply high above their heads. A church? The atrium at the National Museum? The big courtroom at the Hall of Justice?

How did he know what those places sounded like?

They entered a smaller, cozier room with a much damper sound profile. Carpet underfoot, perhaps. He was placed in what felt an awful lot like a comfortable armchair. He opened his eyes.

He was in a salon or office of some sort. The lights were warm, but still a little too bright for his liking. He squinted. There were five figures seated at a long table facing him. They all looked gray and nondescript to his eyes, variously obscured by and overexposed to the lamplight, except the one in the middle. Whoever it was, they were enormous. Too big to be a human person. And they were even bigger standing up. 

“Your name, sir?” the gigantic person asked.

Nobody answered.

 _“ Your name_ _?”_ they repeated, more emphatically this time.

Silence again. Who were they talking to?

“Minister Brrr is addressing you, prisoner,” said the bench. 

Oh, _him!_ “I’m — ” he said, but nothing came out. That wasn’t right. His name. Come on, that was an easy one. “I’m — ” Damn it, which one was he again? Was he Bruther Manek Ded? No — was he Nor Nor Nor Nor Nor? That didn’t seem right either.

“Mister bon Cavalish,” the tall person said, “this is not an interrogation, merely a debriefing. A formality, really, and the sooner we get it over with, the sooner you can get out of here.”

 _Mister_ bon Cavalish? He wasn’t sure of the rest, but he knew that nobody in his life had _ever_ called him _mister_ bon Cavalish. _Sir_ , certainly. _Private_ , sure. _Corporal_ , for a while. _Captain_ , for a bit. _Menacier,_ mostly. 

“Menacier,” he said. “Prime Menacier Trism bon Cavalish of his Royal Highness the Emperor Apostle’s Home Guard,” he recited. “Former, that is. More recently a Captain and Special Agent in the People’s Army of the Free State of Munchkinland.” That’s it. At least the information was still rattling around in his brain, never mind just now what it meant.

“Very well,” said the tall person. No, wait. Not a person, but a large Animal. A Bear? A Tiger? “And where were you born?”

“Gillikin,” he answered. “We lived on a ranch outside of Frottica.” He could still smell the manure on his shoes, could still feel the reassuring warmth of his favorite horse nosing the back of his neck.

“And where did you attend school?”

“St. Prowd’s. Did three years there.” That’s right. Three years of ink stains, rapped knuckles, fistfights with the other lads —

“And how long were you in the Emperor’s service?”

“Thirteen years,” he replied. All the way from Petty Fife to Dragonmaster. 

“What brought your service to an end?”

He had to think on that one. He knew the answer, he just had to figure out how to say it. “I turned against — I mean to say, it had gotten out of hand. It wasn’t what I’d intended, it wasn’t what they told me.”

“Try and focus,” said the Animal. Hold up, that was a great mane of fur. It was a Lion speaking. 

“Just that I —” Trism started. Huh. Maybe this was Liir’s lion. It was more than likely, seeing as there weren’t that many Lions in Oz, let alone in civil service —

_Liir!_

He leapt up from his chair and landed on unsteady feet. “Liir!” he shouted. “Dear God, _where the fuck is Liir?!_ How long has it been?!” 

The Lion looked taken aback. “He — that is besides the point of this meeting, sir. Please, sit down.”

“But you’re — ”

“The Cowardly Lion, in person, thanks for noticing,” the Lion said glibly. “And no, I donʼt do autographs.”

“I was going to say _Liir’s friend_ ,” he said. “You know him, don’t you? Have you seen him? Is he alright?! Is he hurt?!” 

The Lion considered for a moment. “I’ll tell you all about my dear brother-in-law if you sit down and answer our questions,” he said. “And fetch this poor bastard some water, would you?”

Trism’s vision was becoming clearer, even though his head was spinning and his knees were weak. The other four people sitting at the panel all had the look of high government about them — dressed expensively but with no style, all wearing either a monocle or pince-nez, and each wearing some sort of silly green-and-gold accessory. The same soldier who had escorted him up from Southstairs offered him a crystal tumbler of water. 

Trism took the water, but did not drink, and did not sit down. 

“Now, tell us about why you left the Emperor’s Home Guard,” said one of the human members of the bench, an elderly woman wearing a glittering green turban.

“Do you honestly not know?” Trism asked. “That was fifteen years ago. And I don’t —” His heart caught in his throat. “I don’t want to tell it again.”

“Just for the record. We want _your_ side of the story, Trism.”

The glass in his hands shook. The room swam before his eyes. 

“Mister bon Cavalish, the question was —”

But the Lion stood up again, interrupting her. “We’re losing him,” he said, stepping out from behind the table and crossing the room so he was at Trism’s side. “We’ll get you to Sister Surgery. The questions can wait.”

“Lord Brrr!” the turbaned woman exclaimed. “This is highly irregular procedure for —”

“Forgive me, Madame Minister of Finance, but was there some confusion regarding my authority here?”

“Not at all, sir. Simply that —”

“Simply that you would seek to overrule me, Madame Minister?”

“No, milord. Of course not.”

Trism dropped the tumbler and fell to his knees. But instead of hitting the carpet, he landed face-first in a soft, sleek, perfumed Lion’s mane. Someone lifted him onto Brrr’s back, and the Lion padded off as fast as he could. “I’m getting too old for this rescue-mission shit,” he grumbled.


	8. Chapter 8

He was only half-conscious when Brrr got him to the palace infirmary. They were greeted by two monts. One short, rubescent, and determined-looking, and the other taller and younger with a willowy look about her. They got Trism off the Lion’s back and onto an exam bed.

“Poor dear,” said the shorter, older mont. “Poor, brave dear. I don’t even want to _think_ of what they suffer through down there.” She untied his hands, made quick work of what was left of Trism’s clothes and cast a white sheet over him.

He was just awake enough to shiver. He was cold and weak and embarrassed. He wasn’t himself, he didn’t want anyone to see him in such a state. When he started to fuss and shy away from the two women, the younger mont brought him another blanket and tucked him in as much as she could without getting in her colleague’s way. “Don’t worry, Sister Surgery knows what she’s doing,” she said, adjusting the quilt over his wasted frame. 

She fetched a bowl of warm water mixed with milk, honey, and lavender to wash his face and hair. She placed a clean towel beneath his head, and ran her delicate hands in slow, gentle circles over his wounded scalp, his cracked cheeks, his trembling chin.

Dear God, it was almost like he was a human being. 

“It’s alright, love, don’t be afraid,” said the young mont. “You’re safe now, weʼre not going to hurt you. The infirmary is a sacred space, nobodyʼs going to come after you in here.”

“Careful, Sister Helper, he’s got body lice,” said Sister Surgery. “Rat bites, bug bites — not unusual for the poor souls in prison — and it looks like some groundfly larvae got into this wound here. We’ll have to extract them. The sooner the better. Roll him over for me, would you, sweetheart?”

The young mont, apparently Sister Helper, gently turned Trism on his side so Sister Surgery could examine his back. She clucked her tongue. “These weren’t treated when they were fresh, were they, dear?” she said to nobody in particular. “Nasty abrasions. They look infected, too. And it’s going to be tricky to differentiate these from the scar tissue that’s already there.” She must have been talking about the scars that Cherrystone had left on him all those years ago. “Alright, Sister Helper.” 

The monts left him positioned on his right side, supported with another rolled-up quilt. Sister Helper raised his head and rested it on a tall pillow. 

“Will he recover?” asked the Lion.

“I don’t see why he wouldn’t,” said Sister Surgery. “Scurvy! Poor darling! Sister Helper, don’t forget, this man needs citrus fruits in his diet.”

“Yes, Sister Surgery.”

“And he’s severely malnutritioned. Good God, how long has your left shoulder been dislocated, dear?”

Trism tried to remember. “Winter?” he croaked. 

“ _Winter!_ ” Sister Surgery exclaimed. “Last winter! And nobody thought to — _Apathy!_ That’s what it is, apathy towards one’s fellow man. Sheer carelessness — is life not sacred anymore? Apathy is the greatest sin, Sister Helper! Don’t forget that!”

“Shall we set the arm now?” asked Sister Helper.

“I’m not confident it can be done properly without surgery,” Sister Surgery replied. “And I don’t want him conscious for it, at any rate. Actually, I’m not confident he’s strong enough for surgery in the first place.”

“But what about the abrasions on his back? And the larvae?”

Sister Surgery frowned. “We’ll have to do ’em now. Then it’s straight into the tub. Quick, now, let Sister Barber and Sister Toilette know we need a de-lousing. Let it go, dear, we’re going to have to give him a good trim.”

Sister Helper rinsed Trism’s hair and face with more warm water and put her washbowl aside. “I’ll get the surgical implements,” she said, and scurried off somewhere out of Trism’s view.

“What are you still doing here?” snapped Sister Surgery.

“What, me?” asked the Lion.

“I thought I sent you to get Sister Toilette and Sister Barber!”

“Madam! I beg your pardon, but I have other ministerial duties to —”

“You can be Minister of my dusty old snooch for all I care,” she said. “Unless you can pass some legislation that will help this man heal —”

“Fine! No need to get testy!” Brrr said, and padded off in the other direction.

Sister Surgery circled the table so she was within Trism’s line of sight. “Trism, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh, hush. No need for all that formality. You’re going to be with us for a few weeks, so we might as well get on a first-name basis.”

“So — is your first name Sister?”

Sister Surgery laughed. “No, no, dear love. It’s Moira. Doctor Moira Cutton. But just Moira’s fine.” She smoothed the blankets over what was left of his body. “Now, Trism. You’ve come up from Southstairs, correct? Just a nod will do, sweetheart, if speaking is difficult.”

Trism nodded. He felt hot and fuzzy, adrift in a cloud of antiseptic and herbal soap. 

“And how old are you, Trism?” 

“I was forty years and then some when I went in —” 

“Alright, forty-something it is. Now is there anything else, medically, that I should know before we give you something to help you sleep? Anything I missed in my initial examination?”

“Liir,” Trism breathed. “The Lion said —”

“Leer? What’s a Leer, darling?”

“My friend.”

“Your cellmate? Someone you knew in prison?”

Trism shook his head. It was all shaking loose, all floating away.

“Someone else, then — is he in trouble, sweetheart? Does he need help? Can the Lion help us find him?”

“I don’t know,” Trism sobbed. “I don’t know, it’s been so long — he could be anywhere by now —


	9. Chapter 9

When Trism woke up, he was comfortable.

The monts had laid him in a warm, soft hospital bed and swaddled him with white linen sheets and wool blankets. He was propped up on a mountain of downy pillows, still laying on his right side, and for the first time in months, his back and neck didn’t ache.

He was naked except for the bandages all over his body, but it was no matter, since they seemed to cover just about everything anyway. His left arm was in a sling, bound firmly to his chest, so the entire left side of his torso and shoulder were immobile. Someone had taken care to wrap a fine, ethereally soft shawl around his shoulders and put a wool cap on his head to keep him warm.

His hair was short. _Very_ short. But when he took off the cap and ran his hand over his head, he realized it didn’t feel too bad. Most of the scabs and bumps were gone, and any bald patches left over from the march down the Yellow Brick Road were quite small and would be easy to disguise. He tried his chin and discovered he had been shaved recently, too, and by someone who was good at it. No nicks, no razor burn. And a short beard and mustache were already growing back in, nice and even. 

As he lay there, trying to rally his thoughts, Sister Helper stepped around the curtain surrounding his bed. “Wonderful day, you’re up!” she sang, placing a tray of food on the bedside cart. “The Unnamed God is kind after all! Hungry?”

She helped him into a sitting position, supporting his neck and head and making sure he didn’t wiggle around too much and upset his shoulder again. She didn’t seem shy about handling him at all, and Trism couldn’t tell if it was because of her medical experience, or if she was trying to be grabby on purpose. Either way, she was exceedingly gentle, and her touch soothed him, satisfying a need for human contact Trism had forgotten he’d had.

She sat on the edge of his bed and served him a bowl of warm porridge. “I know you were only half-awake when you came in, so I’m Sister Helper, in case you forgot.”

“No, I remember you,” he said. “You washed my face.”

Sister Helper smiled. “I did,” she said. “I know it’s not important for triage, but I feel so bad when people come in all filthy. It just seems needlessly cruel. Dehumanizing, almost.”

“Well I don’t know about all that, but it did make me feel better,” Trism said. “Even if for a moment.”

“I’m glad it helped,” said the mont. “So, how much do you remember? Do you know where you are?”

“We’re not still in the palace, are we?”

“Sort of,” Sister Helper replied. “We’re in a small building that’s attached to it. We’re kind of around the back, on the opposite side from the main entrance, so most people who visit the palace don’t see us. This used to be a Unionist chapel with a little manse next door and everything, but it was converted to an infirmary after the siege.”

“I see.”

“It’s still sacred ground, though. So it’s a safe place for people to rest.”

Trism frowned. “But if not for the siege, you might not have so many patients.”

“Maybe not,” said Sister Helper. “But as long as there are people who need us, I’m glad we’re here. This is the only public medical facility in the Palace district. And we’ve become that much more important since refugee settlements have popped up in all the parks and fancy gardens around here. It’s mostly simple fixes, minor infections, persistent diarrhoea, things like that. But I thank the Unnamed God that the serious cases can make it to us, too.”

“I see why you’re called Sister Helper,” said Trism.

“It’s what I do, sunshine. I help. Speaking of which, do you need to go to the bathroom?”

“Well, I didn’t until you said something.”

“Pee?”

Trism almost blushed. “Actually, yes.”

“Alright, hold on.” She pulled an oddly-shaped pitcher out from under the bedside cart and lifted the blankets off Trism so he was exposed to his knees. 

“I can do this bit,” he said, trying and failing to lift himself up off the pillows.

“It’s alright, I’m not going to do anything untoward. Besides, I’ve seen more fannies and hoo-has and diddly-dos than a five-shilling whore, so it’s lost all of the excitement for me,” she said. “It’s no bother at all.” She maneuvered him into position and he went. She covered him back up, took the pitcher away, washed her hands, and sat down at his side again.

Trism didn’t meet her gaze. What had happened to him? He’d been the pride of his division, he’d received a commendation from the Emperor himself, he’d been proud and young and handsome — to think he was so weak he couldn’t even piss properly.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Sister Helper offered. “You’ve been through so much. It’s a testament to your strength that you even survived.”

“Sure. I’ve lived to wet myself another day. The Unnamed God is good.”

“But you didn’t wet yourself,” she said. “You’re not incontinent, just stuck in bed for now. And it’s only temporary. You’ll be up and around in no time. But until then, you can rely on me.”

Trism ate, only requiring a little assistance from Sister Helper to get some of the more obstinate globs of porridge on his spoon. While he worked at it, she filled the quiet with some pleasant conversation. Nonsense, mostly, stuff that Trism could either take or leave. The weather, what Sister Chorister was planning for Lurlinemas, how she was thrilled to bits that curly-toed shoes were coming back into style.

“Not that I’m allowed to wear them, of course,” she rambled. “Or that I should even _want_ them — material temptations and all that — but I had a pair when I was a little girl, and I remember being so mad when I grew out of them I could hardly stand it.”

“Wait a moment,” Trism said through a mouthful of porridge. “Lurlinemas is next week?”

Sister Helper nodded. “Yes, it is.”

“So it’s been — I was brought in to Southstairs in the spring, and I was in the jail at Colwen Grounds since last summer —”

“You’ve been in that long? We didn’t know you were incarcerated even before you got to the EC. That’s awful,” Sister Helper said. “Is that where the scarring on your left side came from?”

“No,” Trism replied. “Those are much older.”

The young mont was sympathetic. “You’ve met some horribly cruel people, haven’t you?”

“I suppose everyone has,” Trism said. “Only difference is that the ones I meet always seem to be in uniform.”

“ _Soldiers_ did all this to you? Was it the Munchkinlanders? Did they — did they torture you?”

“No, EC soldiers did this. All of it. The scars on my side, the shoulder, the scrapes on my back and on my head — All of it.”

Sister Helper was clearly upset. “I didn’t realize,” she said. “I guess I sort of thought — well, it sounds silly, but I guess I sort of thought that the Home Guard was held to a higher standard somehow.”

“You’d think that, with all the fancy titles and complicated salutes, but you get a man good and scared for his life, there’s no telling what he’ll do. Not even in self-defense. He’ll be brutal just because he can.”

“Well,” Sister Helper said, sitting up straight on the bed, “the Unnamed God will hold the wicked accountable for their crimes. Not that that makes it hurt any less, physically, of course,” she added, casting Trism a reassuring look. 

“Of course. Although it would be nice if we could hold them accountable while we’re all still alive and breathing down here.”

Sister Helper smiled and wiped the porridge off Trism’s face. “That would be nice, wouldn’t it.”

* * *

It had been a year and a half since Trism had seen Liir alive.


	10. Chapter 10

Lurlinemas came and went. Despite its pagan origins, the monts celebrated the first day of winter and the turning of the seasons with all the Unionist zeal they could muster. Trism didn’t get a chance to see the rest of the infirmary since he was still bedridden, but the ward he was in got decorated like it was the Ozdust Ballroom. 

Sister Helper, who was cheerful by default, was beside herself with festive glee. She spent the week leading up to the holiday hanging glittery ornaments, stringing garlands, singing Lurlinemas songs both sacred and secular, and generally giggling at everything. If Trism didn’t know better, he’d have thought she was on the sauce.

Sister Surgery, or just Moira for short, was a little more sober, but still enjoyed the seasonal spirit. She came by to check on Trism three times a day, sometimes four, since Sister Helper wasn’t allowed to do medical procedures by herself yet. 

“So you’re a doctor?” Trism asked one afternoon. “Not like a Sister Doctor, but a proper one?”

“That I am, sugar plum,” said Moira. “Got my MD from Sacred Spleen up at Shiz, just like everyone else. Not to say that any hypothetical Sisters Doctor aren’t _proper doctors_ , but monts traditionally learn medicine through apprenticeship. I learned through university courses.”

“So why — sorry, I just don’t think I’ve met a mont who had a doctorate before. At least not one in medicine.”

“No need to apologize,” she said, taking Trism’s pulse and scribbling it down on her clipboard. “It _is_ unusual for a woman to be a doctor. So unusual, in fact, that when I tried to open my own practice up in Settica, they laughed me out of town. Apparently, it doesn’t do for a lady to study medicine unless there’s an invisible nameless man supervising.”

“So you became a mont so you could keep practicing,” Trism said.

Moira sighed. “I did. And it’s a damn shame. To think, I was an atheist when I started. Stick out your tongue, darling.”

Trism did not see the Lion again until after New Year’s. By that time, he was sitting up in bed unaided, he could stay awake most of the day and sleep through the night, and he had gained a few pounds. Bandages were starting to come off minor cuts and scrapes, and he had enough of a beard to need Sister Barber to come down and shape it up for him.

Brrr entered the room quietly carrying a squarish parcel under his arm. He pulled up a chair and sat at Trism’s bedside. 

Neither of them said anything for a few minutes.

“So, you mentioned something about Liir being your brother-in-law?” Trism wanted to talk about Liir, _of course_ he wanted to talk about Liir. What else was there but Liir, best beloved, wherever he was?

“In a sense,” Brrr replied. “His sister, Nor, and I were — well, we were together for a while.”

Trism remembered Liir telling him of Nor. Nor, Nor, Nor, Nor. “So she was alive after all? Did she and Liir ever reunite?”

Brrr nodded. “They lived together for some years, along with Candle and Rain.”

“Rain?”

“Liir’s and Candle’s daughter.”

“Oh. I see.” Trism had known _of_ the grandchild of the Wicked Witch of the West, but had never learned her name. “Are they still — no, would Nor be here with you? And Liir and Candle and Rain would be home. Back at Kiamo Ko or something.”

The Lion sighed, heavily, deeply. Something Trism said had touched an old wound in him. “Nor died,” he said. 

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Trism said. “Really, I am. She was — from the way Liir described her, she must have been a loving sister to him and companion to you. And I’d always hoped to meet her one day.”

“She was all that and more,” Brrr said flatly. “I know I’m a better Lion for having known her. She had courage enough for us both. Hell, she had courage enough for the two of us, for Liir, for Rain — ”

“She should still be here,” Trism said in what he hoped was a comforting manner. _He_ knew how to grieve. He’d had practice. But to console the grieving — that was beyond him.

“Yes, she should, she should, and damn it all, I’ve been over it again and again,” Brrr said. “She should be here, but she isn’t. I’ve tried to figure it out, I’ve tried to work around it, but it’s just that. She should be here, but she isn’t.”

Trism didn’t know what to say.

“Anyway,” the Lion said abruptly, “I said I’d tell you where Liir was.”

“If I answered your questions,” Trism said.

“And I do have two more questions to ask you,” the Lion said, settling into his chair, as if he were anticipating a long and philosophical conversation. “First one should be pretty easy, but itʼs still got us all a bit baffled. Why in Oz were you taken prisoner by your own side? Howʼd you end up in the jail at Colwen Grounds?” 

Trism scowled. “It didn’t occur to anyone to ask _before_ sending me to Southstairs?” 

“Please, don’t act the martyr. You’d caused enough havoc, even without taking any offenses against Munchkinland into consideration.”

“How would you know? I was never put on trial.” 

“Technically, no, but we held a sort of impromptu military tribunal when we heard that the Munchkinlanders had given you back. Considering the charges against you and the overwhelming evidence, the council didn’t feel it necessary to send for you.”

“Didn’t feel it necessary?” Trism snarled. “I was in prison for eighteen months because some council didn’t feel it necessary?!”

“There were extraordinary circumstances,” Brrr said. “We were in the middle of forming a new High Court and a new Parliament, everything in the government had to be rebuilt from the ground up, I was delegating my balls off and it still wasn’t enough to get everything sorted in a timely manner. I couldn’t find time to get to the groomer for weeks.”

“What a shame, pussy couldn’t get his hair done,” Trism snapped. “You’re right, I should have thought of your point of view. Unnamed God forbid you should be inconvenienced by something as trivial as due process.”

The Lion stood up. He was tall. _Very_ tall. And he didn’t look so soft and friendly all of a sudden, either. “The only reason you’re here at all instead of rotting in your cell is because Liir loved you once. I’m doing this as a favor to him and nothing more. Don’t mistake my politeness for amity.” He sat back down. “Now, where were we?” 

“Something about me being a traitorous cunt,” Trism said. 

“Ah, yes. You were about to elaborate on that.”

Trism didn’t meet the Lionʼs eyes as he spoke. “It’s complicated. But the short explanation is that I was insubordinate.”

“And the long?” 

“I realized Liir was right.”

“About?”

“Sweet Lurline, everyone acts as if they haven’t heard this story before! If you want a confession from me you should have brought a priest!” 

Brrr adjusted his spectacles. “Not a confession, just the whole truth. Tell me what happened.”

Trism hesitated. “Well, for starters, I was one of the five agents who traveled to Kiamo Ko to kidnap Liir and steal the Grimmerie. The lads knew I had a history with him, so they didn’t force me to participate, but I stood by and watched them beat the living hell out of him and did nothing.” 

Brrr snarled deep down in his chest and his mane bristled. “ _You_ were responsible for taking him? How could you — no, I’m not asking rhetorically — how did you manage to justify that to yourself?”

“Because I was sick to death of losing men in battle, some of whom I’d considered friends. I’d been living it, watching the world go to hell all around me, and I thought there was a better way.”

“Nor _died_ because of what you did.”

Trism’s heart sank. They’d been quick and professional about it, they’d just snatched Liir and the book and left. It had taken all of five minutes and they hadnʼt even put hands on anyone else. “How? I never —” 

“Oh, _you never._ Spare me.” the Lion got up again to pace the room. He plodded up and down the ward with a nervous urgency, as if he were trying to outrun what Trism had told him. “You’re a disgusting, amoral — I don’t particularly care whose side you’re on, but how in Oz could you —”

“It was a mistake.”

“No, shit. You think so?” 

“We were desperate. _I_ was desperate.”

“Desperate enough to betray the one person in Oz who _might_ have given a rat’s ass about you. That’s low. And that’s coming from a _bona fide_ coward.”

“I thought if just one person had to get hurt, _not killed_ , just hurt, and just temporarily, that would be a fair price to pay for what I thought would be thousands of lives saved.”

“Even if that someone was Liir?” 

“ _Yes_ , even if that someone was Liir. I know it sounds awful, but he was safe the whole time. We just needed him to _think_ his life was in danger, but I never would have let —” 

“Oh, then that makes it alright! So you just let him _believe_ he was going to die.” shouted the Lion. “My mistake.”

“No, it doesn’t make it alright!” Trism cried. “ _None_ of this is alright! Sending twelve- and thirteen-year-old boys out to die for their country isn’t alright! Kidnapping people out of their homes isn’t alright, torture isn’t alright, training dragons to assassinate innocent people isn’t alright, nothing I’ve done in the last two years has been alright! And I’m _sick_ over it, you don’t think Iʼd give everything I had to go back and stop it all from happening?” 

Brrr shook with silent anger. “As if you were the only one who wishes he could.”

Neither spoke for another minute or so. The Lion continued his pacing, taking deep and unsteady breaths, probably trying to keep himself from bursting into tears. The color had risen in Trism’s face, too. 

“Ask your second question,” he said. 

“You haven’t answered the first to my satisfaction yet,” said Brrr. “Why did Mombey have you locked up?” 

“Because I’d changed my mind about the siege at the last minute and I’d told her off in front of the whole camp.”

“Tell me about that.”

“Well, you must know why we took Liir to her in the first place.”

“You wanted him to read a page from the Grimmerie for her. So she could control the dragons you’d been training.”

“Right. But Liir refused.” Trism paused. “You _do_ know he didn’t do it. He never read anything for us.”

“Yes, I know,” said the Lion, resuming his seat. “He’s an idiot, but he’s not stupid.”

Trism might have laughed if he hadn’t been so close to cracking up again. That was Liir to a T. “So — it was the day before La Mombey left for the EC with the leftovers of the Munchkinland Army and the special dragon-handling unit I’d assembled for her over the years.” 

“And you didn’t think it unwise, putting that kind of power in her hands?” 

“Not at the time, no,” Trism replied. “I saw her as the antithesis of everything the Emperor stood for. He ruled through fear and lies and manipulation of public trust, through perverting religion and national spirit — he had absolute power and he was using it to murder entire — Well, you know about what happened to the poor fucks who got their faces scraped out in the Vinkus, and the massacres at Bengda and Qhoyre, about seventeen years ago now.”

“I do, yes.”

“The Emperor crossed a line. Killing his own subjects to keep himself in power. So I did what I could to stop him from doing it again.” 

“And you didn’t see the dragons themselves as the problem?” 

“Not really, no. They’re incredibly dangerous, of course. Terrible creatures, and I don’t enjoy training them at all. As working animals, though — they’re just like any other tool or weapon of war. A means to an end. I was always adamant that they be used _only_ as a last resort, that they were _not_ to be sent out on just any old mission. It had to be something where any and all losses were deemed acceptable — something that absolutely _had_ to be done, no matter the cost. 

“The Emperor obviously didn’t share my views or my concerns. _He_ used the dragons to keep Oz under his thumb. Both by giving his supporters something to rally around, dragons as embodiment of his divine might — and by using them in a practical sense, to incinerate any hint of dissent.”

“And you believed Mombey would be different.”

“Yes. I did.”

“Was she?” 

Trism hung his head. “I thought she was. I figured the opposite of a great evil like the Emperor _must_ be great good — thatʼs what Liir was right about, by the way. About Mombey. She was just another despot and he saw right through her. She didn’t care about the Free State of Fuck-all, she just wanted the throne, and I don’t know if I actually didn’t notice, or if I wilfully ignored it so I could keep using the war as an excuse to chase after revenge. 

“But Liir forced me to face up to it. I had to stand there and watch him explain to Mombey, right to her face, the innocent lives that would be lost during a massive siege on the EC was too steep a price to pay for peace.” 

The Lion frowned. “Just for my own curiosity — did the question ever bother you at all? Before Liir came into the equation, that is?”

“How do you mean?” Trism asked.

“I mean to say, Did you ever ask yourself if the murder of thousands of innocents in the EC, if intentionally attacking noncombattants was, shall we say, the less correct choice?”

“I did,” Trism replied. “Please believe me when I say that I did. It wasn’t anybody’s first option. I just thought — I thought it was a choice between a massive number of people dying _now_ and an even more massive number of people dying _later_. I actually thought we’d end up saving lives in the long run. The longer the war dragged on, the more men we’d lose.”

“So your men were more important than everyone else.”

“In a sense, yes! I mean, it got to a certain point where I wasn’t interested in right or wrong or how history would view what we were doing. I’m not exaggerating when I say that half of my infantrymen were under eighteen. We were reduced to fighting _children_. And the only thing I could do was stand there in the middle of it and think, Dear God, this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening — Oh, Dear God, make it stop!”

“And Mombey made it stop.”

“She did.”

“What happened the day she locked you up? The day she left for the EC?”

“I already told you. We were getting ready to decamp, and right at the last minute I changed my mind about the whole thing. I refused to order the dragons to fly on the EC.”

“But by that time, she didn’t need you anymore.”

“No,” Trism said. “She’d had plenty of time alone with the dragons, and I’d trained my subordinates a little _too_ well. The rest of the dragon-taming unit I mentioned earlier — I spent months teaching them how to handle the nasty beasts without my help, in case I died or couldn’t be there for some other reason. They helped Mombey fill in the blanks, based on what I’d taught them. It was out of my hands, there was nothing I could do.”

“What finally got you to reconsider?”

Trism had to think about it for a moment. “Liir did,” he said. “Just — Liir being Liir. You know how he is — for all the wandering around and tripping over his own feet, he actually manages to do something right once in a while. He doesn’t speak up very often, either, so when he _does_ —”

The Lion almost smiled. “I think I understand.”

“When they strapped him into a horse cart and got ready to leave — something clicked. It was like all the hypotheticals and what-ifs fell into place, and I finally realized the gravity of what Mombey was planning to do. And —” Trism looked away from the Lion. “I didn’t want them to take Liir away from me again. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t play into it at all. He was weak and badly injured, and I felt guilty about getting angry with him. Especially since there was half a chance he wouldn’t make it to the EC alive and I’d never see him again. I begged Mombey to leave him at Colwen Grounds with me and turn him back into a human so I could take care of him.”

“And she refused.”

“She did. I shouted at her and she just laughed at me, so I drew my pistol and threatened to blow her brains out if she didn’t call everything to a halt, turn Liir back, and release him to me.”

Brrr’s expression had softened as Trism went on. “So it wasn’t a political or military crime so much as it was a crime of passion,” he mused.

Trism glared. “Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing if she had taken _Nor._ ”

“No, I would,” said Brrr. “Although I’d like to think I wouldn’t have tortured her first.”

“Getting Liir involved at all was a mistake. You think I don’t know I made a mistake?” Trism implored. “I wish I could go back and take his place. Really I do.”

“I believe you,” said the Lion. “But there’s nothing to be done about it now. Best we can do is look forward. Speaking of which —”

The Lion handed Trism his parcel at long last. “Before I ask my last question, I want you to know that I _will_ tell you anything you want to know about Liir regardless of your answer. But I _do_ need an answer.”

Trism raised an eyebrow. “This is starting to sound like a marriage proposal.”

“Save it for the boys, bon Cavalish. Besides, you’re not my type.”

“Alright then, what’s the question?”

Brrr opened the parcel. Inside a layer of tidy brown paper was a brand new Home Guard’s dolman, emerald green with dashing gold silken passementerie, and a matching pelisse lined with soft, rich pearl- and white fox fur. 

“Times have changed,” said the Lion. “The Emerald City isn’t what it used to be. Crime is on the rise, and the civilian police force isn’t quite up to the task. I’ve consulted with my council — the four others who were in that office with me — and we’ve decided to deploy the Home Guard within the city to aid the regular police. It’s only a temporary arrangement, it probably won’t last for more than a few years. Just until recruitment numbers are back where they should be. Sooner, if the Reconstruction efforts are going well.”

Trism stared at the uniform.

The last time he’d seen one, it had been on Commander Cherrystone. 

Trism had been held down by the ankles, wrists, and neck, exposed for Cherrystone’s entire company to see. 

Liir had said Trism was handsome. Beautiful, even. Said he’d had the best ass this side of the Kells. Trism had loved being touched, caressed, kissed, worshipped.

But _fuck_ whatever Liir had said, there were strange hands on his body in places they weren’t supposed to be. A white-hot blade bit him, snapped at his perfect skin, peeling, gnawing, straining, stripping him down past mere physical nakedness.

He couldn’t really remember how long Cherrystone’s boys took to flay him alive. They had held him down so hard, he’d broken his own arm trying to get free. 

He hadn’t even been able to scream.

“The old guard is gone, Trism,” Brrr continued. “There’s hardly anyone enlisted today who was in the service before the war started, and we’ve lost more senior officers on the battlefield than I care to admit. Enlistment numbers are in the negatives. We’re losing men, and the ones that are staying are only there because they’re too green to know any better. They need guidance. They don’t have the skills or experience necessary to keep an entire city in order or to train new recruits. Very few people alive do. And you’re one of them.”

Trism just kept staring.

“Your country needs you.”

“Fuck my country,” Trism spat. 

Brrr huffed. “I was afraid you’d say that. Well, not that exactly, but something along those lines.”

“Then why did you bother asking?”

“Because I can commute your sentence,” said the Lion.

“Sentence?” Trism asked. 

Brrr shifted his weight in his chair and compulsively adjusted his waistcoat. “At the military tribunal, you were sentenced to life in prison.”

“What?”

“I’m offering you a way out of spending the rest of your natural life in a jail cell,” Brrr explained. “If you’d let me finish.”

“You know, I’m not as mad about the life sentence as I am about you and your council buddies thinking you can use me —”

“They had nothing to do with this,” Brrr said. “Actually, two of them wanted you executed instead. They thought it would be good to start the new administration with a show of force, let ’em know we’re not kidding around. This was my idea, Trism, and part of that same favor for Liir.”

“Well, tell me where he is and I’ll thank him personally. Save you the trouble.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“You haven’t asked it properly.”

“Fine. Will you accept a position as Commander in charge of the Emerald City Home Guard Police Auxiliary?”

“Fuck no. Now where’s Liir?”

“So you’d prefer Southstairs, then?”

Trism picked the dolman up out of the brown paper wrapping. It was a genuine classic, just like they used to issue before the war made materials scarce. The fabric was comforting under his fingers, the embroidered loops and scrolls familiar, and much as he hated to admit it, the green and gold still stirred noble sentiment in him. 

“I couldn’t claim to understand your experiences with the Home Guard in the past, but I know that the Emperor betrayed you long before you deserted.”

“And yet you still found me guilty for treason,” Trism rebutted.

“Would you listen? Put all the revenge nonsense aside. It’s a new administration, a new government, a new day, a new age, and I’m offering you an opportunity to do something constructive for once.”

Something constructive. _Constructive_. Speaking of which, it occurred to Trism that he hadn’t seen the city since heʼd returned. “Before I answer, could you bring me to the window?”

Brrr seemed to understand what Trism was getting at, and lifted him gently out of bed and carried him over to the window at the end of the ward. It was a gray, snowy afternoon, and the distant skyline was hazy. But Trism could see enough.

Church spires were broken. Domes were shattered. Glass was blown out of windows everywhere he looked. Signposts were bent and burnt. Whole streets had had their cobblestones pulled up and smashed. Bridges lay collapsed in the canal. The gardens down by the Ozma statues were being used as a refugee camp. Fires burned not in houses, but in the streets and alleys and backlots of the city. He couldn’t see a single horse-drawn carriage. 

And there were still bodies in the streets. 

This was his fault. All those people out in the cold, starving, exposed, sick, torn from their families and friends — It shook him. It was worse than he’d thought. 

This was all Trism’s fault.

“When do you need me to start?” he asked quietly.

“As soon as Sister Surgery says you’re strong enough.”

Trism watched the snow fall. A beat of silence.

“Trism — Liir survived the siege. He’s at home with Candle and Rain. He’s alright.”

“Hmm? What’s that?”

“I said, Liir is alright.”

“Oh, right. Good.”


	11. Chapter 11

Over the next few months, Sister Helper was a constant source of warmth and light in Trism’s life. She sat with him for hours on end, bouncing back and forth between incessant chatting and tender silence as needed. She read him the paper and all the pulp magazines she could get her hands on. For the serial stories, she gave all the characters silly voices and made him laugh. She brought Trism sheaves of used paper out of the wastebin in Sister Surgery’s office and a charcoal, so he could doodle on the backs, and she hung his work up on the wall near his bed.

They spent snowy afternoons playing Four-card Spit between Sister Surgery’s rounds so they wouldn’t get caught — Sister Helper was not allowed to gamble, not even with the small packages of roasted nuts and chocolate nibs leftover from Lurlinemas. The young mont was surprisingly sharp, and very often cleaned Trism out of all his candy. But every once in a while, she let him win. They always split the winnings regardless.

She brought him fruit every day. Sometimes it was a little wrinkled and tasted a little off, but every morning, without fail, there was an orange or lemon or lime or grapefruit on his breakfast tray. Trism knew every piece must be extremely expensive since citrus was both out-of-season and in high demand, so he didn’t complain when he got one that was a bit past its prime, Just like me, he thought. That and he noticed that it made Sister Helper happy to see him eat the little treats she brought in, so it was the least he could do to repay her.

A few days after Trism had accepted the position as Commander of the new Home Guard police unit, a courier came to the infirmary with a large file folder to give him. Inside were some documents with information regarding the new job. Apparently, his new HQ was to be a little station-house in the Lower Quarter. Initially Trism had thought it was some kind of joke, putting him in the poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhood in the city. But he decided to hold his judgment, since it only stood to reason that the slums would need the most help.

He was to lead a unit of twenty-three soldiers nicknamed “The Sons of Shiz,” whose _de facto_ leader was a young man named Saffrin. Their enlistment paperwork was almost nonexistent, but from what he gathered, all the members were either from Shiz or had attended school there at some point, and thus the name. He also noticed that there were a suspicious number of enlistees who had signed up on their eighteenth birthdays, including Saffrin himself. Most of them were likely actually underage. Although just _how_ underage, he couldn’t be sure until they met face-to-face.

Just like Sister Helper had said when he’d first come in, Trism wasn’t stuck in bed for long. As soon as Sister Surgery said it was alright, he was back on his feet and spent a little time each day hobbling around the infirmary. First with Sister Helper to lean on, then with a cane, then on his own. When he was strong enough, Sister Helper challenged him to a fast-walk race down the hall, but he tripped and fell halfway through, taking her with him, and the two landed in a heap of laughter. 

Soon enough, it was time to take his left arm out of its protective sling. Sister Surgery did the honors, and gave Trism a battery of motor tests to see how it had turned out. He could still roll his shoulder, but not as far or as fast as he used to. He could only raise his arm so it was parallel to the floor, no higher, and even that was a strain. Sister Surgery handed him a small leather ball, and he managed to wrap his fingers all the way around with some difficulty, but couldn’t squeeze it. 

Sister Surgery concluded that the damage was largely permanent and his left arm and shoulder would never fully heal. But she also said Trism had to exercise his left side to maintain the flexibility and muscle tone he still had. So every day Sister Helper helped him stretch and gave him small objects to lift with his left arm, and she let him braid her hair to reteach his fingers how to be nimble.

After a mere eight weeks, Sister Surgery declared Trism was fit to be discharged. Trism was surprised. Despite all the progress he’d made, he still felt so fragile. Sister Surgery assured him he was ready. 

Trism had to come to terms with the idea that he would never be strong and fit again. That this, what he was right now, was as good as it was going to get. 

Being old sucked.

His last night at the infirmary, Sister Helper stayed late to help him get his things together. He didn’t have much. Just a few odds and ends, including the pictures he’d drawn and the last of the gambling candy. Sister Helper packed them carefully into a knapsack, along with some pairs of socks and hose and undershirts they’d collected from the donations box.

For the first time since he’d been there, Sister Helper seemed sad.

When he brought it up, she only smiled and blushed. “Maybe I am a little sad,” she said. “But it’s for selfish reasons. I’m glad you’re better. Really, I am.”

“I am going to miss spending time with you,” Trism said. “I think I might have gone completely mad if you hadn’t been here.”

The young woman glowed in the soft lamplight. “I’m going to miss you, too. But you can always come and visit, if you ever get the urge to lose at cards,” she teased.

“Or if I ever need any tropical fruit,” he added. 

Sister Helper opened her mouth to speak, but bit it back, and simply put her arms around him. He returned the embrace. She was small and steady and soft and warm, and he’d come to associate her touch and her light scent with peace and comfort. He wasn’t looking forward to going out into the world without her.

She planted a chaste kiss on his cheek. Then another. And another. And then one on his jaw, and one on his chin, and one on his lips. Then another, and another, and she didn’t let go. She held his face in her hands, breathing the entirety of herself into him. Trism touched her cheek and leaned into her, tasting her, exploring her in ways that hadn’t occurred to him before. He closed his eyes.

He was twenty years younger and kissing someone else.

“Wait,” Trism said. “Wait, no.”

Sister Helper stopped and pulled back.

Trism held her hand. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she croaked, torn between laughter and tears. “I bet you think I’m awful. It’s just — I mean, you’re a good man, Trism. And I like you a lot.”

“I like you too,” he said. “I consider you a friend.”

“But only a friend.”

“A close friend, a dear friend. Do you know how difficult it is to come by someone who honestly cares? You’re one of maybe four people in all of Oz who gives even half a damn about me. You’ve literally waited on me hand and foot for nearly two months, and, most of all,” he said, dabbing her cheek with his sleeve, “you put my needs and my feelings above your own. I couldn’t ask for more or love you better than I do already.”

Her face shone bright pink in the semidarkness, and Trism could feel the heat radiating from her. “You love me?”

“Of course I do. I love you very much.”

He embraced her again, and allowed her a moment to rest her head on his shoulder. A few moments passed, and they gathered from each other the strength that they would need to get through tomorrow. Sister Helper wouldn’t disappear after he left, and she’d still care about him, even if she wasn’t there to remind him ten times a day. It would be alright.

“I hope Liir knows how lucky he is, to have your heart still.”


	12. Chapter 12

The day finally came. The skies were cloudy and the air was crisp and chilly. The winter snow was finally starting to melt, although the early-flowering trees and weeds hadn’t decided to bud quite yet. Trism hoped it wasn’t just False Spring, this slight upswing in temperature, but he decided to take it as a good sign anyway.

Sister Helper, Unnamed God bless her, had managed to procure some styling wax for him so he could fix his hair and beard in the big mirror in the hallway. It wasn’t exactly like it had been when he was younger, of course. He wasn’t sure what was fashionable nowadays, so he didn’t overdo it, he just made sure everything was tidy. 

The exact color of his hair had changed, too. When he was in his twenties, it had been a rich, thick golden yellow, and he’d been all too proud of the way he could get it to sit in a jaunty wave, and how he could curl his mustache just so and get it to stay put. Now he was more sandy-haired than gold, and if he really squinted, he could see singular strands of soft grey sneaking in here and there. Dammit.

Similarly, he didn’t fill out the EC uniform like he used to. The dolman was looser, the epaulets sagged a little, and the pants didn’t work well for his rear anymore. He tried throwing his shoulders back and puffing out his chest, tried to fool himself into feeling macho, but all he did was hurt his bad shoulder. Well, no more of that nonsense. 

He knew he shouldn’t care so much about the way he looked, but being in uniform again highlighted how much he had really aged in twenty years. He didn’t like it.

Brrr had written and said they’d send a cabriolet to take him to the Lower Quarter this morning around nine o’ clock. So at quarter-to, he and Sister Helper stood out in the street and waited. Even after last night’s exchange, Sister Helper seemed happy. Trism didn’t want to bring it up in case she still felt vulnerable, so they passed the time counting birds, throwing rocks in puddles, and whistling raunchy bar songs that Sister Helper wasn’t allowed to sing out loud because they had swears in them.

The cab pulled up. Trism turned to Sister Helper to say goodbye. She fussed over him, fiddling with the buttons on his overcoat because it was still cold and she didn’t want him to catch a chill, giving his hair a last-minute fluff to keep it from sitting flat in the back. 

“You know how to find your way back here if you want to visit, right?” she asked. 

“Of course I do,” Trism replied. “Just find the palace and work my way from there. Couldn’t be easier.”

“Right, right,” she said. “And you have the bread and cheese I packed for your lunch?”

“I do,” Trism said, patting his knapsack. “Actually, I have something to give you, too.” Two weeks ago, he’d written Brrr and asked for a small advance on his first paycheck. Brrr had written back saying no, absolutely not, he was in no position to ask for an advance — but then he’d enclosed with his reply a personal cheque for ten florins, since he knew that Trism had not a farthing to his name otherwise. It was more than a pittance but less than generous. 

Trism had gotten the attention of one of the novices who worked nights at the infirmary, and had asked her to take the cheque and see if she could do a little shopping around and find something for him. She’d had to ask him what in Oz he was talking about, but when he explained himself a little better and reassured her that he did not, in fact, have regressive brain disease, she agreed to help. Two nights later, she’d returned with his change — seven florins and three — and the item he wanted wrapped up in a little blue box.

Now Trism pulled the box from his knapsack and presented it to Sister Helper. “I know the other monts might disapprove, but I’d like you to have this,” he said.

Sister Helper looked genuinely surprised as she took the box and opened it. Her face went all pink and glowy like it had last night as she pulled the delicate glass bauble out. It was a brilliant little fancy orange with a stem and one swirled green leaf on top, full and plump like it had just been picked. 

“It was handmade by a Quadling glass-blower who has a little shop downtown. It’s not much,” Trism said. “But —”

“Not much?” she interrupted, beaming. “This is the most wonderful gift anyone has ever given me. I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you won’t miss me too badly?”

She grinned and gave him one last squeeze. “Now go on, you have a city to save,” she said. Trism stepped up into the cab and watched her as they drove away, for as long as he could, until they turned a corner and she was out of sight.

Trism had gotten a vague idea of what to expect from looking out his window at the infirmary. The streets were a little rougher than he’d expected, and the smell was appalling, but nothing shocked him outright. People were living their lives, trying to get by, to make something better with the garbage they’d been given. Nothing unusual about that. 

As the cab trundled through the city streets, Trism noticed that there were more and more homeless people as they neared the Lower Quarter, as he’d expected, but it seemed like very few of them were engaged in a proper job of any kind. They were playing out their daily routines, sure — cooking cats and rats and pigeons over open fires, burning whatever they had available, mending tarpaulins and fixing their makeshift tents and little bungalows — and children played in the street, neighbors chatted, babies cried — but there wasn’t a single shop open. Not a one. Nobody was baking bread or selling produce, hawking used kitchenware or making fashionable hats or selling books, nobody was filling potholes or fitting new glass panes into blown-out windows, nobody was fixing roofs or repainting street signs. 

But he did see beggars, he did see people who’d lost an arm or leg or an eye or some combination thereof, he did see prostitutes of both sexes on nearly every corner, he did see purveyors of whatever illegal drug you could possibly want doing their dealings in plain view. Trism didn’t blame them, though. It wasn’t fair to expect people to worry about the economy or property values or moral decay if they were just struggling to get by. This neighborhood was the poorest in the EC, and it was probably the one that needed the most attention, both socially and financially. But Trism had the nagging suspicion that it was getting neither.

At last, the cab stopped at the station-house and Trism stepped out. The building was old, made of brick, two storeys, and although it had a sort of noble antiquated manner about it, it was presently in very shabby condition. It sat on the corner of its block, so it had windows and doors facing the street on two sides. At one of the doors stood an elderly man with wild white hair, semi-crouched over, clutching an enormous leather portfolio to his chest. “Commander bon Cavalish?” he wheezed.

“That’s me,” Trism replied. “And you are?”

“They just call me Clarky, sir,” said the elderly man. “I come with the station-house. Been working here since the Wizard was in power.”

“Clarky, eh? And what is it you do here, Clarky?”

“Well, sir,” he said, “I’m the company clark, if you can believe it.”

Trism blinked. “Ah, yes. Of course you must be. Right.”

“Anyway, I’m supposed to say welcome to the precinct, and the boys are in the yard ’round back waiting for ya.”

“The boys? Oh, the boys. My new unit. Please, take me to them.”

“Right this way, sir.” Clarky was steady on his feet, but slow. He had a determined, yet mechanical way about his gait, as if he were some rusty old tiktok thing in need of repair. He shambled through the front door with Trism behind him, led him through the small anteroom with a narrow counter and shelves built into the wall, past the booking station, down a claustrophobic hallway, and out the back door. The training yard was small and overgrown, with vines crawling over the rusty benches and up the brick wall of the building adjacent.

And then there was the unit in question. Twenty-three of them, from school-aged boys to weathered thirty-somethings. All in various states of uniform violation, standing around, chatting, laughing, shoving each other playfully, as if it were just another day in the university quad and the professor hadn’t shown up for class yet.

“Attention!” Trism bellowed. They all jumped and scurried into something like formation, facing him. And then Trism stopped.


	13. Chapter 13

He already knew these people. He knew each and every one of them, even though he’d never learned their names. The boy with the bushy eyebrows had been mainly responsible for pulling Trism’s beard out by the root, one handful at a time. The one picking his nose had beat him so hard across the back that he’d pissed blood for a week. The one with the foppish little earring had tripped him and had laughed as he dragged along in the snow and mud behind the cart, unable to regain his feet. 

The Sons of Shiz were the same company who had tortured him nearly to death last winter. They’d all seen him half-naked on his hands and knees, covered in his own excrement and half-frozen to death. They had all heard him howling and whining like an animal. They’d all seen him bent, they’d all seen him broken. And the one in the front row was the copper-haired swaggering man-boy who had led them.  _ This _ was Saffrin, the person who was supposed to be his second-in-command.

As soon as Saffrin got a proper look at Trism, he turned white with shock. He stood there, stock-still, eyes wide, mouth partly open, expressionless. The other men recognized Trism too, though not all at once, and Trism watched their attention flicker back and forth between himself and Saffrin, still motionless and silent, looking for a hint at what to do next. 

No matter that they outnumbered him. No matter that he was still physically frail, no matter that they could pick up right where they left off with him — he was, in fact, at their mercy simply by being in the same building as them. They  _ would _ take orders from him. He  _ was _ a human being, and he  _ was _ their superior officer. 

Trism took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and raised his chin, steeled himself, and stepped out into the yard. “Form a line,” he ordered. The unit obeyed, forming a straight line across the courtyard. “From now on, when I call you to attention, I want you to arrange yourselves thusly.”

“Yes, sir,” said about half the company, all at different volumes and with different timing. 

“On the ground!” Trism shouted. “Fifty push-ups, now!” The Sons of Shiz took their sweet time with the push-ups. Nobody kept count, they all went at their own pace. Trism let them finish before speaking again. “Funny, I don’t recall asking for whatever the pitiful fuck that was. I want fifty. Push-ups.  _ Now _ .”

They looked to Saffrin for guidance. But the young officer was still insensible. A different soldier, this one a tall, lanky, mousy-haired man, called out to the rest of the company. “Come on, boys, I’ll count. All together now.” The men went down on their knuckles again while their compatriot counted out fifty push-ups. They still went slowly, but this time they were together. 

“It’s like I ordered a coffee but got hot shit in a cup instead,” Trism said. “Although I suppose it’s an improvement, seeing as last time all I got was shit without the cup. Now let’s see if we learned anything. When I tell you that I want you to arrange yourselves thusly when I call you to attention, you all reply —”

“Yes, sir!” shouted twenty-two soldiers. Again, not all quite in unison, but better. Saffrin was the only one who had not replied. He just stared at Trism’s feet, looking like he was doing everything in his power to keep from throwing up. 

Trism decided to change tack. “That’ll have to do for now. I’m not going to call roll today, partly because you already know who I am, and as of right now I generally don’t give two fucks what any of your names are. You all had every chance to introduce yourselves during our little expedition last winter and chose not to do so. I am, instead, going to ask you to do a little question-and-answer with me. By show of hands, who here is under eighteen?”

Nobody moved. Alright, they were probably trying to maintain some form of solidarity. But he refused to tolerate being lied to. So Trism picked out the shortest member of the company and addressed him directly. “You. What’s your name?”

The soldier he had chosen was just a child. The poor thing hadn’t even fully outgrown his baby fat yet. His eyes were big and round and honest, the sleeves of his uniform coat had been rolled up several times so they didn’t flop over his hands. He reminded Trism of another awkward young man he’d met nearly thirty years ago, now, under a bridge near a gooseball field in the rain.

The boy in front of him trembled. “I’m Ewan, sir,” he said, barely above a whisper. 

“No need to be afraid, son. You’re not on trial here. Where are you from, Ewan?”

“I’m from Shiz, sir,” he replied. “We all are, after a fashion.”

“Did you go to school there?”

“No, sir, my mum and dad owned a stable, so when all the fancy folk came to town, we’d look after their horses for ’em.”

“I see. And how long have you been in the service?”

Ewan cast his eyes around for help. “Two years?”

“Come now, think back. How many winters?”

“This past one was my third with the company, sir.”

“And before that?”

“That’s when I joined up, sir, in the winter.”

“So two years and a few months,” Trism said. “Alright. And you were living with your parents when you joined?”

“Yessir.”

“Well, if you were eighteen when you enlisted, like your paperwork said, that’d make you at least twenty-one by now. The folks must have been proud to see their son, a full-grown man, volunteer to fight for his country, mustn’t they.”

The child fiddled with the cuffs on his coat. “I don’t know, sir,” he said.

“No? They didn’t tell you so?”

“No, sir.”

“Your dad didn’t take you out for an ale the night before you left?”

“No, sir.”

“Oh, it must have been because you wanted one more fuck with your lady-friend before you shipped out. Something for her to remember you by.”

Ewan blushed furiously. “No, sir.”

Trism knelt down in front of the boy. “And why is it you didn’t do those things, Ewan?”

“Because I never had a lady, sir. And I couldn’t get in a bar, even with my dad.”

“And why is that?”

“I’m not old enough,” he admitted.

“No kidding. You were probably drafted, weren’t you, kiddo?” Ewan nodded, and hid his face in his sleeve. “How old were you when they took you away?”

“Eleven,” he choked out.

“And do your parents know you’re in the army, Ewan?”

He shook his head. “They just grabbed me up,” he said.

What would Sister Helper do in a situation like this? “I’m sorry they did that,” he said in what he hoped was a soothing tone of voice. “Ewan, can you look at me, son?” The boy peered out from behind his oversized sleeve. “I probably sounded quite cross when I showed up, didn’t I?”

“A little,” Ewan mumbled. “But you have good reason to be cross with us.”

“Maybe I do. But I’m not angry with you in particular and I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“It’s alright, sir.”

Trism attempted a warm smile. “You’re a brave lad,” he said. “Especially since you’re only just fourteen.”

“But I think I’m still thirteen, sir,” Ewan added. “I’m a summer child.”

“Thirteen, then,” Trism repeated. Ewan didn’t say another word, and Trism stood back up to address the rest of the company. “Alright,” he said. “Let’s try this again. Who. Here. Is underage?”

Of the twenty-three members of the Sons of Shiz, nine cautiously raised their hands. Saffrin was among them.

“And who’s under twenty-one?” Six more.

“Under thirty?” All but two had their hands up.

“Good God,” Trism breathed. “Under thirty-five?” That was everyone.

“And how many of you were conscripted?” Ten, again including Saffrin. And seven of the ten draftees had been in the under-eighteen group, too. “Fuck me.” A third of his unit were kidnapped children.

They were boys, they were  _ just boys _ who had been snatched away from their homes and families too young, so how could they have had it in them to treat anyone with such malice and neglect as they had done to Trism? Was it  _ because _ they had been snatched away, and they felt the need to attack outsiders to protect themselves, to survive in an unforgiving environment where necessities weren’t guaranteed? 

Was it moreso the fault of each individual on his own, or the group as a whole? Was Saffrin more accountable than the rest because he was their leader? Or was it the older members? Or the higher-ranking ones who bore the most blame? And how could innocent little Ewan be held responsible for something that was done by his elders and betters, and in which he had only a minor role? How could they maintain such deep affection and camaraderie for each other, and such prejudice for Trism?  _ How _ ? 

He had a choice to make. “Who among you doesn’t want to be here?” he asked. Nobody moved. “That’s not a trick question,” Trism said. “I mean it. Who among you  _ does not _ want this job?”

Again, nobody moved, nobody spoke. Saffrin even managed to look proud for a moment. 

“I’ll see that you get paid,” Trism continued. “If you want to leave now, I can guarantee you one-week’s salary to hold you over until you find something else. Or blow it all in one night on tits and ale, I don’t care.” Trism had no idea if the precinct had the funds for such a thing, but he’d get the money somehow. 

Silence again. There was some kind of uncanny loyalty among them, that was certain. Trism knew that would be a boon to him in the long run, but right now, it was just annoying.

Little Ewan raised his hand slowly, timidly, shaking into the air. “Me, sir.” 

“You?”

“Yes, sir. I want to go home.”

Someone down the line breathed, _“_ _ No _ _.”_

Trism turned. It had been Saffrin, he remembered the young man’s voice. Saffrin had been especially spiteful to him. Trism understood that since he was their leader, he had been obligated to torment him at least a little to keep the loyalty of his friends. But Saffrin had done more than duty had required. He’d been there, every single day, kicking Trism, slapping him, pulling his trousers down for a laugh, making up jokes where the punchline was always Trism being sodomized somehow.

“Is there a problem, soldier?” he asked, striding over and planting himself mere inches from Saffrin so they were just face-to-face. Trism was no longer doubled over with fatigue and aches and pains, he was no longer some anonymous shell of a man who might gladly lick Saffrin’s boots for a crust of bread. Trism was taller than him, bigger than him, outranked him. The twinge of fear on Saffrin’s face was delicious.

“No, sir,” Saffrin said. “Just that —”

“Yes?”

“Just that — wee Ewan — I mean, I’m concerned for his well being, sir.”

“I see. So he’s old enough to go out and fight and kill people, but he’s not old enough to know when he wants to go home.”

“But he’s  _ not _ old enough, sir.”

“No? I thought everyone here was at least eighteen. Good thing Ewan was able to tell me otherwise.” Saffrin clenched his jaw and glared at Trism. “So, since he’s not old enough to be in the service, the best thing for him would be to stay in the service. Makes sense.”

“I’m only thinkin’ of him,” Saffrin said. “We’d never steer him wrong.”

“Of course not. I’m sure you all set an excellent example for him. The peak of military discipline and ethical conduct, the lot of you.”

Saffrin bit his tongue, but his expression was rueful still. 

“Ewan, come here,” Trism said. “Are you sure you want to go, son?”

Ewan stepped out of line and nodded. 

“Then go tell Clarky to give you a cheque for fifteen florins, collect your things from the barracks, wherever they are, and be on your way. Godspeed.”

Before he left the courtyard, the boy spared one last glance to Saffrin. “I’m going back to Shiz to find my mum and dad,” he said. 

“And I hope you find ’em, boy-o,” Saffrin said fondly. “Unnamed God keep ya.”

“I'll write you all when I get home and tell you everything that's changed since we've been away," said Ewan. "And thanks, Rin. You’ve been a real friend and I know I wouldn't have made it without you. I’ll miss you. All of you.” And then he was gone. 

“Right,” Trism said, addressing the company at large again. “Anyone else?” He waited a good ten seconds before moving on. “Fine. From this point forward, you are all demoted to private.” To their credit, nobody cussed or moaned, but the air went out of the courtyard. “Based on what I’ve seen, I’m not convinced that  _ any _ of you has earned your current rank. My hypothesis is that you were all promoted too quickly and too soon in order to fill a need for officers brought on by the extraordinary casualty count during the last years of the war. It is also apparent to me that  _ none of you _ has received proper training. More likely than not, most of you poor lumps were given a uniform and a gun and shipped out the same day you signed up. While that may be fine if all the service requires is human fodder, that is  _ not _ the way we breed effective, efficient, intelligent and morally upstanding officers.

“Beginning tomorrow, you will all wear your uniforms  _ properly _ . No undershirts showing, no rolled-up sleeves, no mismatched buttons, no jewelry. If you are unfamiliar with regulations, you may use me as an example or see if Clarky has a handbook stashed away somewhere that doesn’t predate the Pastorius regency.”

“But sir,” interrupted one soldier. “We’re to dress like you?”

“Not exactly, but you get the general idea.”

“You mean, sir, that you en’t wearin’ your fancy uniform today?”

“No,” Trism replied. “This is normal service dress. But haven’t you all got something like this to wear?” The soldiers shook their heads. “Fine. Wear what you have, for the time being, but wear it  _ tidily _ . And if you haven’t already, either invest in finding a reliable laundress or learn to wash and mend your own clothes. I will not tolerate unhygienic practices within my unit. You will all get in the habit of regular bathing, and for those of you old enough to grow a beard of some kind, regular shaving.

“You will all be in this yard and at attention at the stroke of eight tomorrow morning and not a second later, and we will begin to correct the errors in your development. I will train you all in military etiquette. You will learn to be neat, professional, and take and follow orders with enthusiasm. I will teach you all how to use firearms  _ properly _ and under which severe circumstances they may be employed when working with a civilian population. I will teach you all how to defend yourselves, not against artillery fire and bayonets, but against knives, clubs, broken bottles, and other instruments by means of which you may be attacked while you are doing your jobs. You will all learn to read and write, if you haven’t already, and to the high standard of my satisfaction. You will all memorize the names and locations of every street, alleyway, building, corner, and slum in this precinct, and you will learn the faces and usual habits of everyone who lives within its bounds.

“The war is over, gentlemen. There is no more need for brutish, unenlightened men in Her Majesty’s service. So if any of you cannot muster yourselves and answer the call — not a call for the primitive, vicious slaughter of some enemy, but a call for peacekeeping, for careful, conscientious stewardship and protection of the common good — then you have no place in my company. Regardless of any bonds you may have formed with the men around you. And yes, it is  _ my company _ now, gentlemen. And from here on out you will do as  _ I _ say.”

There was a beat of silence as the Sons of Shiz digested Trism’s words. “You are all dismissed until tomorrow morning,” he said. “Except you —” Trism beckoned towards Saffrin. “Come with me. My office. Now.”


	14. Chapter 14

“Clarky, would you show me to my office?”

“Right this way, Commander.” Clarky hobbled and wobbled out from behind the front desk in the front room. Trism followed him, and Saffrin followed Trism. He led them to a room towards the back of the building, small but not cramped, with a handsome, dusty antique desk and chair and matching chest of drawers inside. Clarky pulled a book of matches out of a pocket somewhere and lit the lamp on the desk. “Don’t get much light back here, I’m afraid, sir,” he intoned.

“Thank-you, Clarky, that’ll be all,” Trism said. But just as the elderly man turned to leave, Saffrin caught his arm.

“Did you get Ewan the money he was owed?” he demanded.

“You will unhand him, private,” Trism barked. Saffrin let go of Clarky, but didn’t break eye contact.

“Don’t worry, I got the young master his cheque,” said Clarky. “Then he asked which way the Shiz Gate was, and he was off.”

“ _ Thank-you _ , Clarky,” Trism repeated emphatically. “Please leave us. And get the door if you don’t mind.” Clarky shuffled out and shut the door behind him. It was just Trism and Saffrin.

Saffrin didn’t move and didn’t speak, his hands shoved in his pockets, eyeballing the floor in front of him. Odd how he didn’t look so dangerous all of a sudden. It was almost as if he were a normal teenager. But Trism knew better. “Usually, when a man won’t stand at attention and look his superior in the face, it’s a sign of impertinence,” Trism said.

“Sorry sir,” Saffrin muttered. “I didn’t know you wanted me at attention still.”

“Well, I don’t recall dismissing you,” Trism said, rounding the desk and taking off his overcoat and gloves. 

“Right,” Saffrin said, straightening up and lifting his gaze.

“That’s better,” Trism said, taking his seat. He hadn’t had a desk, let alone an  _ office _ since he was Dragonmaster all those years ago. It was an odd feeling, calling upon a part of himself that had been quiet for so long. 

“So,” Trism started. “You’re Saffrin. The fearless leader.”

“Saffrin is my name, yessir.”

“And how long have you been in the service?”

“Five years,” he replied.

“Five years —?”

“Five years,  _ sir _ .”

“Yes. Well, under normal circumstances, I’d call that halfway respectable,” Trism said. “But you’re still just an arrogant little snot, aren’t you?”

“Look, sir, If you’re goin’ to punish us for what we did to ya, leave the boys out of it. I was in charge of ‘em, it’s my fault. They were just followin’ orders.”

The comment took Trism aback. “No they weren’t,” he said.

“They were. I never told ‘em to stop,” Saffrin said.

“You never told them to  _ start _ ,” Trism countered. “You never told them to lay so much as a finger on me. They did that all on their own.” Saffrin opened his mouth, caught himself, and closed it again. “Although your proposal is interesting,” Trism continued. “And this is assuming  _ I’d _ be the one to mete out justice.”

“I — well, you  _ are _ in charge, sir.”

“Huh. So what exactly is it you think I’ve got planned?”

“I couldn’t hazard a guess,” Saffrin said. “But whatever it is, I can take it. I’ll do all the things we made  _ you _ do. I’ll — I’ll eat garbage or drink privy water, I’ll sleep in the yard without a blanket, I’ll scrub the entire station house with a toothbrush —” he took a deep breath and stuck out his chin. “And if there’s any canin’ or floggin’ to be done, I’ll take that, too.”

“And what about tickling you with a feather until you cry  _ uncle _ ? Will you brave that as well?”

“I’m in earnest!” Saffrin said. “Really, I am! I don’t care if it’s ten lashes or a hundred or a thousand. There’s nothin’ I wouldn’t do for my men.”

Trism considered. “Do you want to know what the penalty for your actions is?”

“I do.”

“Well, I’m no lawyer, but based on the  _ Treatise on Right and Proper Military Procedure for Peace and War _ — which I’m sure you’ve familiarized yourself with cover-to-cover seeing as it’s required reading to even qualify for the promotion to minor menacier — the penalty for torturing a noncombatant is life in prison, minimum, and might go as far as some rather nasty forms of execution based on circumstance and degree of severity.”

“But — but you’re not a noncombatant!” Saffrin exclaimed. “You’re a soldier, like us!”

“I wasn’t at the time,” Trism said. “I wasn’t serving on either side when you had me. I’d been dishonorably discharged by the EC more than a decade ago, and La Mombey stripped me of my rank personally.”

“You weren’t a civilian, you were our prisoner!”

“Doesn’t matter,” Trism said.

“But — but you were —” Saffrin stammered, fishing for words. “But you were hostile, you were dangerous, you were —”

“Did I ever once try and fight back? To escape?”

“No, but that’s because we tied you up.”

“You didn’t bind my feet, you didn’t gag or blindfold me. I could’ve tried to kick or bite you or scratch your eyes out.”

“You — well, I mean, you weren’t a normal civilian, either,” Saffrin said. “You were a special case, a person of interest to us.”

“And that justifies torture, just being a person of interest?”

“We were out in the middle of nowhere, we had to take certain measures to keep you secure.”

“Ah,” Trism said, feigning comprehension. “So  _ that’s _ why you made me literally lick the shit off your boots before breakfast every morning. See, I’m glad I asked, I wouldn’t have come up with that on my own. Clever.”

Saffrin was losing his cool. He was bouncing his knee, his face was turning bright red. “That’s not what I meant, sir,” he said lamely.

“Then what  _ did _ you mean by it all?” Trism asked.

Saffrin didn’t answer.

“Well?” Trism pressed. “What have you got to say for yourself?”

“It started out as a joke,” Saffrin mumbled. “See, some of the lads knew your name and your reputation, and we’d heard that you were in charge of the dragons that attacked the EC, and —”

“You’d all lost someone or something in the siege,” Trism said. “I know. I understand why some of you have reason to be mad at me, might find tormenting me cathartic. I don’t intend to deny any of you the right to bring grievances against me for what I did. But — you all went well beyond just making me pay for it.”

“We did,” Saffrin admitted.

“What you did was inhumane. It was sadistic, it was barbaric, it was bloodthirsty, it was cruel — I was almost dead by the time we got back here. And when I was finally released from Southstairs, just this past Lurlinemas, I couldn’t have told you my own name if you’d held me at gunpoint.”

Saffrin actually looked ashamed of himself. The jaunty golden-boy façade was slipping. He was no intrepid leader, he was no dashing hero. He was just as much a terrified child as the rest of them.

“You know, my left arm will never be the same,” Trism continued. “From the shoulder down. Permanent nerve and muscle damage. I’ll have scars all up my backside — but then again, it’s not like they don’t have company — and it’s likely I’ll never gain back my old strength.” 

Trism waited a beat, giving Saffrin a chance to speak. “It was easy, picking on you,” Saffrin said, voice higher and quieter than Trism had heard it thus far. “It started as a joke, but we got carried away. It was easy, and fun to have someone to kick around for once. I think that’s why we did it, sir.”

“And not a one of you thought to stop. Not even to challenge the rest of the unit, just to stop.”

“I — no, sir.”

“Not a one of you.”

“No, sir.”

“Not a single man in your unit saw anything wrong with what you did to me.”

“We understand we shouldn’t have done,” Saffrin offered.

“But in the moment — nothing? The question of right or wrong didn’t surface, nobody mentioned anything about humanity or ethics or mercy? I mean — even higher forms of animal know better than to attack their own unprovoked.”

Again, Saffrin was speechless. His lips trembled, his nose ran, his eyes grew misty. He stared at his shoes. He was a kid, remorseful and dreading the punishment he knew was coming his way. Trism rose from his chair and rounded the desk again, perching on the edge so he was right next to the young man.

“I am not a philosopher,” Trism said. “But I like to think I’m decently well-read and at least as intelligent as the next man. Although I have had the advantage of time on this one — I was in the infirmary for two months and then some, recovering. So I had a lot of time to think. Not necessarily about what to say to  _ you _ , in particular, since I didn’t know I’d be meeting you today. But I did do quite a bit of cogitating on the subject of human beings — why we think and feel the way we do, how we treat one another, who we really are, when you get right down to it.

“Although I don’t want you to get the impression that this was all an academic exercise on my part — just the opposite. This was all in pursuit of trying to figure out why you did what you did. At the time, while it was happening, I’d told myself it was my punishment for all the damage I’d caused, that it was justified, warranted, even. But later on, after I got out of jail, I found myself thinking that there had to be more to it than that, that I wouldn’t be able to come to terms with my grief unless there was a reason for it all. It couldn’t be mere chance, it couldn’t be blind fate, so what was it? 

“Now, it can be very difficult to know the true nature of a man,” Trism continued. “And I don’t mean in the sense of, Oh, I’ve known Mr Such-and-such for years and we understand each other so well. I mean, it’s difficult to know a man at his core. His virtues and flaws, his convictions, his strengths and weaknesses. Who he  _ really _ is, beneath all the protective layers. 

“In order to be certain, you’d have to totally remove a man from all external influences that might change his behavior. You’d have to free him from the restrictions placed upon him by the faith, by the law, and by the society he lives in. Only then would he be at liberty to be the way he wants, the way he truly is. No rules, no consequences for his actions. Just a man in and of himself.

“Of course, all this raises more questions than it answers. Do we, as human beings, derive our morals and ethics from the  _ dicta _ of the faith and law and society, or do those institutions reflect an inborn desire in us to be moral and ethical? Are we, as human beings, instinctually selfish, or generous? Cruel, or kind? Aspirational, or indolent? Is guilt inherent in us, or is it taught to us later on? Are good and evil naturally occurring concepts, or did we invent them? And what are we willing to fight for? And why?

“Most men will never know how to answer these questions, regarding himself,” Trism said. “Most can’t quite distance themselves enough, they’re too caught up in the day-to-day to get the conditions of the experiment quite right, and they go through life not really knowing themselves. But  _ you _ —” he said, looking at Saffrin directly, “we both know  _ exactly  _ how you act when there’s nobody and nothing there to stop you.”

“I’m sorry?” Saffrin said, nonplussed.

“You were in charge,” Trism recited. “You were out in the middle of nowhere. You were free to do whatever you wanted and get away with it. How you behaved, what you did to me — beyond the tempering influences of superior officers or religion or law or social expectations —”

Trism didn’t need to finish his thought. Saffrin felt the weight of the words unsaid.

“I want you to go home and reflect on exactly what kind of man you really are. Or if you be man at all.”


	15. Chapter 15

Trism spent the rest of the day reacquainting himself with the neighborhood. He strolled around, a few blocks in each direction, relearning the lay of the land. He’d been away nearly twenty years and everything looked so different.

The last time he’d been in the EC he’d had Liir at his side. They’d walked together on a rainy, hazy winter’s night, plotting sedition, holding hands, and catching up. Trism had actually meant to murder Liir that night, but had lost his nerve halfway through and ended up a sobbing mess instead. 

Liir had comforted him. He hadn’t patted Trism on the back or promised him everything would be alright — that would have been tactless and Trism might have tried to throttle him again. But Liir had accepted him, in his own unsuspecting way, loved him, even understood him. Trism had felt so helpless and alone in his guilt and his grief, even all that time ago, that he hadn’t thought he could ever be whole again. 

But Liir had gotten him close.

Around midday, he headed back to the station house and ate the lunch that Sister Helper had packed for him. Bread, cheese, and an orange. That made him smile. Although after he ate, it occurred to him that he hadn’t seen anywhere to get food nearby. No produce carts, no delicatessens, no slummy little cafés. He asked Clarky about it, but the old man just shrugged and said he usually ate at a public house near his apartment, a little further uptown. 

Getting a room at an inn or something would have solved Trism’s immediate need for meals and housing, but he didn’t have enough to afford an extended stay anywhere. Clarky did mention that there was a tiny garret above the station-house, that he’d used to sleep up there if things were really busy and he didn’t have the time to go home. But since he was too old to get up the ladder anymore, Trism was welcome to it.

Tiny had been an understatement. It was almost more of a closet than a room, the ceiling was so low Trism could hardly stand up, and the air up there was a tinge damper and chillier than it was downstairs. But there was a mattress and some blankets on the floor, a chair, a chamber-pot, and a miniature coal stove for warmth. On the upside, it was quiet and cozy and the roof seemed to be doing its job just fine. It would have to do.

Another issue was trying to figure out how to bathe, shave, and get laundry done. He only had the one outfit — his service uniform — and he’d been promised a second set, along with mess dress and full dress, but they hadn’t come in yet. Alright, he’d sleep naked tonight, keep his dolman and trousers from getting all rankled, and he’d go out and find some civvies tomorrow. He’d also need to find a wash basin, a mirror, a good razor and strop, and some shoe polish. And some coal or tinder or _something_ , for the Unnamed God’s sake. It was chilly up there. Admittedly it was all a bit of a stretch on only seven florins and three, but he’d survived with less. At least he had a pot to piss in.

He spent a few hours putting his office in order. It was mostly old paperwork in various states of being faded, wrinkled, and washed-out with age, some of it dating back to the reign of Ozma the Bilious, and it was therefore of no immediate use to Trism. He packed it away in the filing chest. 

Based on some of the documents he found, he learned that the station-house had been built nearly a hundred years ago, and he got little hints that suggested it had once been rather grand. The dignified and self-actualized quality of the furniture, now dusty and a little dilapidated; the exacting parquetry in the grubby wooden floors; the dextrous, fussy little scrolls on the ceiling panels and light fixtures; the tiny stylized “O-Z” embossed in each tarnished brass doorknob. Things like that.

His predecessor had also left some books for Trism to find, some very handsome vintage editions of popular standardized texts and such, which might have been quite valuable if they’d been stored properly. As it was, they were just barely in good enough condition not to throw away.

Trism found a loaded revolver in the top drawer of his desk and extra ammunition for it in a carton two drawers down. It was a sturdy little thing, and he felt confident holding it. Naturally it wanted a little cleaning, but it was entirely possible it would still work. Trism unloaded it and put it away for the time being.

That evening he reviewed the instructions he’d gotten from the palace regarding the new unit. Apparently, he was heading up one of six military or paramilitary units stationed in trouble spots around the EC. He’d been given a month to train the Sons of Shiz to the best of his ability before they had to split into shifts and start doing real police work. 

But what did the palace expect of them? Were they supposed to arrest the entirety of the Lower Quarter? Technically, everyone he’d seen on the street that day had been loitering or squatting or both, and it looked like prostitution and the illicit drug trade were the only two industries presently extant. Trism was going to have to teach the boys to direct their energy toward keeping the peace in a practical sense rather than to enforce the law to the letter, though if the rest of the company followed Saffrin’s moral code or lack thereof, Trism would have his work cut out for him. But he’d have to — it was the only way they’d be able to do any good.

It was the only way _he’d_ be able to do any good. He had no intention of punishing the people of Oz any more than he already had.

* * *

Trism could not sleep. He was tired, sure, but it just wouldn’t come to him. He lay on the mattress and stared at the ceiling while trying to ignore the strange sounds and smells and textures all around him.

He’d gotten used to Sister Helper tucking him in at night. The way she’d smooth the blankets, her smile, a delicate air of floral, antiseptic, and citrus. He wanted to get up, hail a cab, drive back to the little chapel and find a squashy chair or comfy patch of carpet to doze on, ideally in whichever room Sister Helper was sleeping. But that was stupid. He’d been away from the infirmary for less than a day, he was a grown man for Lurline’s sake. He couldn’t afford to waste time and energy fantasizing about the nurturing feminine figure, about little domestic comforts.

He got out of bed and hung up the charcoal drawings he’d brought from the infirmary, right over the bed so he could see them. The nighttime air made his shoulder hurt more than usual.

Trism wondered what Saffrin was doing right about now. Maybe _he_ couldn’t sleep, either. Serves him right, Trism thought. Let _him_ have guilt-ridden nightmares for a change. Smarmy little bastard.

The night rolled by. Trism didn’t have a watch, but if he strained, he could hear church bells tolling. One in the morning. Two in the morning. Three in the morning. He got up to pee even though he didn’t really have to. He grabbed a book out of his office, _A Brief History of Traffic Signals_ , and prayed to the Unnamed God that it would be boring enough to do the trick. It wasn’t.

He figured he was already undressed and alone in the building, so he might as well see if a good yank would take the edge off. Trism reclined in bed and stroked himself unenthusiastically, trying to come up with something sufficiently exciting to get things up and running. Something really raunchy, something that would make him forget he was cold, hungry, overtired, and stuck jacking off in an attic.

Bosoms big enough to bury his whole head in, like twin pillows, soft and warm and lightly musky with pert little hats he could nibble and suck on. Sweet, rosy bottoms on blushing girls, something for him to squeeze and make them giggle with delight. The heat of someone’s intimates around his fingers, exploring, teasing, rubbing silky-wet folds and searching for that little nubbin they all begged him to kiss. 

Speed. Friction. Pressure. Panic. He needed something more, he keened, shifting around on the bed trying to steady himself. He was getting lost. 

Strong, gentle hands cradled his hips, brushed his chest, his face, his hair. He felt the tickle of a shy set of whiskers against his chin. A pair of lips caught his, moving in time like waves beating the shores of a lake. Every fiber of his being screamed, now that there was someone close enough to hear — he was desperate to be found, to be saved from drowning in the dark space between the stars. And in the same instant, every fiber of his being rejoiced — he _was_ found, and he had found another in turn, and they exulted in one voice. 

He was in the arms of someone who cared for him. He was safe, he was loved, he was not alone. They were of one breath, one heat, one whole. 

One plus One is One.

* * *

The next morning, twenty-one soldiers stood in a line in the yard as the eight o’ clock bells came and went. Just the twenty-one. Trism sighed. Maybe it was for the better that Saffrin hadn’t returned. “Alright, gentlemen. Today marks the beginning of your re-training. We will start with the basics — physical fitness and agility. Now I want you to —”

“Sorry I’m late,” Saffrin panted, brushing past Trism as he entered the training yard. “Won’t happen again, Commander.” Saffrin put down his knapsack and fell in line.

“No, it won’t,” Trism said. “Would you care to share with us what exactly you thought was more important than being here on time?”

“I was doing some reflecting, sir,” he replied.

“Is that so?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And did you find any sort of illumination?” Trism asked.

“Well, yes and no,” Saffrin said. “I think — I honestly don’t know what kind of man I am right now, sir. But I know what kind of man I want to be.”

Trism didn’t quite smile at Saffrin — everything he’d been through over the past year and a half was still too immediate. Too real. But he did allow his expression to soften, just a little. And it looked like Saffrin noticed.

“And you’re willing to work for it?” Trism said. “There may be some scrubbing with toothbrushes involved.”

“I am.”

“Good. We start the day with fifty push-ups.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't by any means the end of the story! I plan on adding 3 more parts, and part 2 is already in the works. I never intended this thing to be as long as it is, and I feel like I needed to break it into parts to keep it organized, to give me sort of a "cutoff" for what's done and what still needs doing. I'm going somewhere with all this, I promise! Hopefully, I'll have some more stuff to post soon! -Lu


End file.
